


Women of Balnain

by SuhailaUniverse



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon, The X-Files
Genre: F/M, FBI, Outlander meets the X-Files, Scotland Yard, Slow Burn, multiple characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-07-11 11:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15970964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuhailaUniverse/pseuds/SuhailaUniverse
Summary: Special Agent Claire Beauchamp finds herself working a case of a missing young woman and unexpectedly partnered with a highly unorthodox Detective who challenges her in ways she never thought possible. Little did she know, this was the beginning of a journey that would change her life forever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it. And that’s a place to start, that’s where the hope is.” - Dana Scully.

## Chapter 1

_Washington, DC._

 

 When Claire Beauchamp decided to join the FBI, she never dreamed the job would take her where it did. She’d expected her background as a medical doctor, exemplary test scores and profiling acumen at Quantico would be enough to get her assigned to cases where her abilities would be best put to good use. Granted, she wasn’t as physically dexterous as some of the other graduates (inept would have been putting it kindly. She’d always been a little clumsy), she was still a great shot though, she’d always thought defiantly. So, it came at a bit of a surprise when her first solo assignment as a fully fledged field agent had her in the basement going through dusty old cold cases.

A young woman had gone missing without a trace while out camping in the mountains of North Carolina for the past week. It was one of those cases senior agents pawned off believing them to be dead ends, that had found its way onto Claire’s desk. With everyone busy gunning for the high profile cases to make a name for themselves, Claire embraced her assignment, determined to give it everything she had. It may not have been what she was expecting; a headline catching, gruesome murder, but it was a woman in need of someone giving a shit. Someone to give her a voice. Someone to look for her. And Claire’s first priority before her flight out to North Carolina was to research any files she could that may have any connection to missing persons in and around that area.

Little did she know, this was the beginning of a journey that would change her life forever.

***

Claire got back to her tiny desk in the corner of the bullpen, a stack of files in her arms, to find Joe Abernathy - the only person she’d ever been able to connect with at Quantico - leaning against it. He smiled hesitantly at her.

“Call just came in, the Director wants to see you,” he said.

Her eyes flashed to his in shock, the files dropping from her hands with a thump onto the desk. “Why didn’t you come get me?! Has he been waiting long?”

He laughed jovially. “You know I wouldn’t do that to you, LJ. Your meeting isn’t for another five minutes, figured you’d be back by then. And if not, I would’ve called for you down at records.”

She smiled back weakly. Claire knew of all the people she’d met at the academy, Joe was by far the most true of them all. As a fellow doctor, she and Joe gravitated towards one another during training, becoming fast friends, as close as siblings. It had been a joy and relief to see him assigned a few desks from her.

“Why does he want to see me?” she asked as she straightened herself up, brushing the dust that had clung to her pants suit from the files off of her sleeves and trying to fix her unruly hair.

“No clue! But you have about-” he checked his watch, “-three minutes  _aaand_ forty two seconds to get up there and find out.”

***

Claire’s cheeks were flushed by the time she got to the Director’s office, in time to have the receptionist usher her in immediately. She took a moment to straighten her blazer and pat down her hair one last time, before turning the doorknob. Two men sat waiting for her, their faces unreadable, their body language rigid. Claire’s palms began to sweat as Director Campbell gestured for her to sit opposite them. Her glass face must’ve shown how nervous she was, for he smiled reassuringly as he began to speak.

“Don’t look so worried, Agent Beauchamp,” he said, by way of greeting. “We’ve asked you here today to discuss the case you find yourself working on at the moment.”

“Yes, it’s rather a delicate piece of business,” said the second man, in a clear, clipped English accent. Taken aback, Claire looked between the two men - it had been a while since she’d heard a fellow Englishman.

Seeing her confusion, Director Campbell gestured to the second man, “this is Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Harold Grey.” The man, who was in his late forties if Claire was to guess, inclined his head toward her. Everything about him screamed military man through and through.

“You’re a rather long way from home, Commissioner. What brings Scotland Yard stateside?” Claire asked, guard up and her own accent unconsciously deepening, noting his tightly clasped hands. Whatever it was, it wasn’t something he was at all comfortable with.

“Aren’t we all,” Grey replied with a rueful smile. “As for why I am here, one of my young superintendents, a Detective James Fraser, believes you’ve stumbled upon an ongoing case he’s been…  _engrossed_ by for some time now.”

“The missing girl?” Claire said, confused. At their nods, she continued, “but I only just received the file this morning.”

“The lad believes it’s connected to a number of disappearances in and around the UK and Europe,” Commissioner Grey said. “Detective Fraser is extremely good at what he does. He’s highly focused, driven and has one of the best analytical minds I’ve ever seen. But of late, he’s developed a rather  _unorthodox_ fixation with unexplained phenomena.”

At this, Claire’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline.  _Is this a joke?_  she thought incredulously,  _some form of hazing the newbie?_  She quickly rearranged her features as Grey continued to speak, ignoring her surprise.

“He’s asked for special privileges to be extended to him to continue his investigation on US soil, in conjunction with the FBI. With you.”

She near snorted unbecomingly, “ _Me_?”

“We want you to assist Detective Fraser,” seeing the look of affront flash across her face, Campbell hurried on. “That is to say, you’ll be the lead agent in this…  _partnership,_ while Detective Fraser is here. Given your medical training, along with your objectivity-”

“-And my Englishness, perhaps?”

“-We’d like you to… do what you do best. Keep comprehensive field reports, detailing your observations, not only on the case, but on the validity of Fraser’s work here as well.”

She took a beat to watch the two men. They seemed too stuffy to be hazing her. She saw her file lying open in front of Campbell, he knew she wasn’t as experienced in the field as many, yet it wasn’t a coincidence she’d gotten this case it seemed.

“I’m sorry, but is it my understanding that you’d like me to, what exactly? Debunk his findings?” She said acerbically, sitting just a little bit straighter. She didn’t know this Fraser, nor frankly did she care what conspiracy theories were rattling about in his head, but this seemed beyond unusual.

“We aren’t asking you to  _spy_ on him, agent Beauchamp,” Grey put in quickly, “I just simply need you to keep the lad  _focused_. Real girls have been going missing, and while Jamie has turned up some very real and promising leads on the case, I just need him to turn up a real culprit. Not some monster lurking in the shadows.”

Claire hadn’t been able to find much of anything down in records that resembled any sort of pattern to the missing cases. If this was as big a case as they believed it was, perhaps working together, sharing information would lead to something more. She needed all the help she could get, regardless of whether Fraser was crazy, he had information she may need.

Against her better judgment, she nodded in agreement. “So, where is this Detective Fraser, then?”

***

 _Of course_  he was already elbow deep in records, she thought as she trudged her way back down to the basement. After a quick inquiry with the agent at the front desk, Claire wove her way through the stacks of boxes, to a small back room where agents could review files without any interruptions. Claire wasn’t entirely sure what she was expecting to find back there. Perhaps yet another stuffy Englishman with a ramrod up his arse and a fancy for the imaginative. What she did find though, took her aback.

He sat, coat draped over the back of his chair, his broad shouldered back was half turned away from the door, a pencil caught between his teeth as he poured over open casefiles in front him, and the richest auburn hair Claire had ever seen, gathered up in a loose messy man bun. His jaw covered in semi-heavy scruff.

“Detective… Fraser?” she asked, thoroughly uncertain.

“Hmmm…” he replied distractedly, turning toward her, a deep furrow of concentration between his eyebrows, partially hidden behind thick-framed specs. His eyebrows smoothing out as soon as he registered her standing in the doorway, a smile tugging at his lips. “Aye, yes,” he said standing up, and she was once again taken aback. Not only was he quite a towering figure - 6’3’’ at her guesstimate - but a Scot as well. He hastily spat the pencil out, tucking it behind his ear and asked, “Are ye the agent I’m to liaise with, then?” while offering her his hand.

Was that  _hope_ tinging his question? she thought.

She took his hand, shaking it firmly, “Yes, I’m Special Agent Claire Beauchamp,” she replied.

“How odd,” he said, “I never thought I’d be partnered with a Sassenach.” Seeing her confusion, he added with a shaky laugh, “But I suppose we’re all outlanders here, aye?”

He nervously rubbed the back of his neck and she couldn’t help but tell how beautifully made he was - in a strictly anatomical way of course, her professional MD mind said - his white dress shirt doing little to hide the power beneath. His skinny black tie, loose and askew at his neck, revealing sun-kissed bronze skin beneath the open button.

He quickly regained his composure and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“Quite,” Claire said, regaining her own composure as she moved further into the room. Beside him she looked positively Hobbit-like. She never liked wearing high heels at work - or ever really - just in case she had to do any sort of physical activity in the field, she wasn’t about to roll her ankle for some impractical notion of aesthetic beauty. All her shoes were no more than an inch off the ground if she could help it. But now, seeing this monolith before her, she wished for nothing more than her tallest heels. “The Director said you had information that could be important? Our flight leaves in about two hours, so if you could briefly fill me in on what you have before we head out?” she said, looking past his elbow at the box of files he’d brought with him.

“Oh, aye!” he said turning around, seemingly just remembering he’d come with a box at all and began rummaging through it. “I dinna ken what or how much Commissioner Grey’s told ye…” halting his search, he looked at her over his shoulder to see her hips cocked to one side, arms crossed and a thoroughly skeptical look staring back at him.

“Not nearly enough,” she replied honestly.

“Yes, well,” he said coming away with a well worn out casefile and handed it to her, “Have ye perchance ever heard of the Women of Balnain?”

***


	2. Chapter 2

## Chapter 2.

 

 Mad. She thought he was simply barking mad - like everyone else did. He could see it lined in every inch of that incredibly breathtaking and glass face of hers. He could see her struggle for patience, to process his theory. He clutched the casefile in his hand a fraction tighter as she turned away from him, her arms still crossed across her chest. He generally never cared if people believed his theories or not, he’d long since given up trying to convince them, so long as he produced real results, no one cared what he thought or how he came to his conclusions. But for some inexplicable reason he found himself nervous around agent Beauchamp. In a way he never was before. He wanted  _her_ to not think him insane, to believe him - halfway, at the very least.

As anxious as he was for her to not dismiss him outright though, he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander as she paced the room. She was a tiny wee thing. Her ivory skin contrasted beautifully against her navy blue pants suit that fit her like a glove, but wasn’t tight by any means; her movement fluid and unencumbered. Her brown, curly hair impossibly tamed into a French braid, yet rogue curls sprouted every which way. And as she turned once again, his eyes lingered on her perfectly round ars-

“ _Faeries_?” she asked incredulous, snapping his attention back onto her face, as she rounded on him. Even though she sounded thoroughly disbelieving, he was relieved her voice didn’t drip with the usual disdain. “Is this some kind of joke, detective?”

He took a deep breath, swallowed around the large lump forming in his throat and steeled himself. “No, I didna mean faeries exactly-” he said trying to bring his racing thoughts into one coherent thread, “What I mean is, I believe what’s happening to these girls isna based on simple abduction, but something far more ancient. Of all the cases I’ve investigated, there’s been three main common threads between them all; All the women have gone missing in and around the time of one of the four Fire festivals: Samhain, Beltane, Imbolc, Lughnasadh,” he began pulling out photos of young women and notes of the corresponding dates, as well as of the locations from where they were last seen and handed them to her. “Each of them going missing in and around ruins of standing stones.” He chanced a look at her face as she looked over his notes and hurried along to the piece of information he knew she could and would grasp at. “And yet all these young women, all different in age, ethnicity, creed, time, locations and everything in between, who seemingly have no connection whatsoever, in any feasible way imaginable, have one thing in common,” her head rose sharply, her eyes meeting his. She was undeniably curious. “They all came into a contact with a man simply known as Maitre Raymond, shortly before their disappearances.”

She let out a shaky breath and looked back down at the stack of papers he’d given her. Jamie began feeling restless in the building silence between them. He felt he needed to do or say more, make her see, but just as he was about to speak, he saw her shuffle through the papers for a moment and stop at a scan of an ancient looking document, the words meticulously written, half in English and half in a language he was sure she’d not recognize, both faded with time.

“ _I am the wife of the Laird of Balnain_ ,” she whispered to herself, “ _The Folk have stolen me over again… It was a time, two hundred years ago_ …”  _Lamb always said, it’s always two hundred years in Highland stories,_ she thought. Her voice having petered away as she stared at the folktale in her hands.

“Agent Beauchamp?” He said hesitantly.

“This ‘ _Maitre Raymond’_ , do you have a photo of him?” She asked, eyes suddenly sharp as razors.

“Aye,” he said, eager to share what he knew now that he saw her willingness to listen - even if she didn’t believe in the fantastical parts of it. He took back the stack she held and handed her a folder marked  _La Grenouille._

She cocked an eyebrow at him, the first smile he’d seen from her finally tugging at the corner of her lip. “The Frog?”

He dipped his chin and returned her smile with a cheeky one of his own. “Aye,” he simply said.  _She spoke French, then_ , he thought.

She opened the folder and was immediately greeted with a portrait of a barrel-chested man with long silver-gray hair, who undeniably resembled friendly black eyed frog, with a toothless grin that split his face from ear to ear. By all accounts the jovial looking man that stared back at her seemed thoroughly harmless - but she of all people knew looks could be deceiving. She then noticed the artist hadn’t signed the portrait with his or her name, but only the date the portrait had supposedly been painted.  _1744_. Eyebrow still cocked she pursed her lips tightly together and turned the portrait to him, finger pointed at the date.

“That isna even the strange bit. Keep looking,” he said.

She looked at the next two pictures, both dated 1968, both from what appeared to be rallies, but one tagged from an AIM rally in Boston and the other from a ‘Free Scotland’ gathering at the university of Edinburgh. And in both, grainy as the pictures were, there he was; all of four-foot tall, bandy-legged and the froggiest man Claire had ever seen. She flipped through the rest -  _Scotland 1978, Scotland 1980, France 1994, Bulgaria 2001, France 2007, England 2014, Unknown 2015, USA 2017, Scotland 2018…_  pixelated CCTV snapshots, photos taken off the internet - all unmistakably Raymond. Her head was spinning enough that she had to sit down - with a rather undignified thump. She looked at him and he could read every single one of her questions.

“And those are just the few pictures I’ve managed to find,” he said, taking a seat beside her.

“How long have you been investigating this?” she asked, her mouth uncharacteristically dry.

“On and off since 2014.”

“This is why they’ve put up with your… “unorthodox” notions. You aren’t just chasing boogeymen-”

“-I’m chasing him,” he said, tapping Raymond’s folder.

“Why  _these_ women? Why have his appearances become more frequent over the last few years? What’s he doing with them?” He could see her mind racing a mile a minute and he ventured to place a light, calming hand over hers. She stilled immediately.

“That’s why we need to find him. See if he has any connection to the missing girl in North Carolina-”

“Malva,” Claire said, interrupting him. “Her name is Malva Christie.”

“Aye, Malva, has any connection to him. And it isn’t just women,” he added, watching her.

“Wait… What?”

He saw a fresh wave of questions rise within her, but before she could take a breath and launch another flurry at him, he glanced at his watch. “Och, we didna have time to get into it all here, ye said we had a plane to catch, no?”

She shot off her chair, realizing how much time had passed already, “Oh shit, sorry! Yes, yes we do. Grab your files and whatever else you need, and meet me on the third level parking lot in five minutes. There’s a few things I need to get before we leave.”

He’d barely nodded before she’d hurriedly left the room, his fingers still tingling from where he’d touched her.

***

_Tryon’s Ridge, NC._

 The short flight down to North Carolina and the drive up to the sleepy town of Tryon’s Ridge did nothing to help Claire wrap her mind around everything Fraser had told her. He’d given her space to try and absorb what he’d already told her, to go through his box of files on the flight, but she could feel him repressing the urge to tell her more. Questions raced through her mind as she drove up the winding mountain passes, Fraser had gone quiet, mesmerized by the endless expanse around him. Her need to get a better read on the detective growing with every mile. He puzzled her in a way no one had before. He didn’t  _seem_ crazy. His notes were comprehensive, proficient and intelligent. Yet here he sat, convinced he was chasing some time traveling, little frog-like man. They hadn’t had much chance to exchange any casual remarks between them and as the silence built up between them, Claire cleared her throat. If she was going to understand this man, be able to work with and rely on him, she needed to get a better read on him.

“So, is this your first time stateside?” she asked, voice cracking slightly from disuse. She seemed to have pulled him out of deep thought and he turned to her slowly, as if her words came to him from a long way off.

“Aye, it is,” he replied. He sat up straighter, having slumped down a little as she drove, lulled by the car’s rhythm and rubbed his eyes. He’d slid his chair back to give his long legs some extra room. For the first time she noticed how exhausted he looked. “Though, I do wish it were under more pleasant circumstances,” he said with a small smile, fiddling with his specs he’d hooked in his dress shirt. “And you? How long have ye been here?”

“Oh,” she said with a sigh, “about seven years, now. I did my general medical degree in Oxford, then moved here to finish off my specialty at Harvard.”

“Did ye always plan to join the FBI?” he asked, turning his body towards her.

“No, can’t say that I did, really. It just sort of… happened. After I got my resident papers sorted, as much good as I was doing at the hospital, I just felt there was still  _more_ I could do. One thing led to another, and next thing I know, I was graduating Quantico,” she finished with a shy laugh. “How about you? Was Scotland Yard always your goal?”

“Aye, it was. I come from a long line of military men and I’d joined the army right after my Advanced Highers, but I didna want my life to just be soldiering. So, I joined the Special Investigation Branch and after I completed my tours, put in a transfer to Scotland Yard.”

“And the ummm… less than conventional notions?” to put it mildly. His smile broadened, lighting up his eyes and Claire was hard pressed to think of anything more attractive. She forced herself to focus on nothing but the road ahead.

“Well, I’m an educated man, Agent Beauchamp, if I might be so bold,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice and feel his eyes on her. “Maybe no’ as educated as ye, but the SIB wasna all I did while in the military. I had a tutor. And a good one too. He taught courses on all manner of topics, from Latin and Greek, to literature and sciences,” she could feel his smile turn wicked as he watched her, “and childhood stories of faeries, devils,” he leaned closer, “and waterhorses in Lochs,” he added conspiratorially, finally cracking that skeptical facade of hers, making her laugh. “But, I’m also a Highlander, born and bred. And I dinna believe in tempting fate by making light of that which we dinna have explanations for,” he finished, crossing himself.

“Is that your way of saying you’ve seen some shit, detective?” she said, giving him a sidelong look and a cheeky smile - was she  _flirting_ with him? she thought, shocked with herself at how easily it was to do so. He laughed then, the sound pleasantly rumbling through her, making her shiver slightly.

“Aye, well… I dinna say I ken all the answers for the fantastic, but I will say there are some things in this world science doesna have an answer for either,” he replied, genially.

“ _Yet_ ,” Claire replied, resuming her formality. “What I do find fantastic is any notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there, detective, you just have to know where to look.”

***


	3. Chapter 3

## Chapter 3.

 

 The farther up the mountain they drove, the foggier it became, which Claire found somewhat odd for early May. The heat had been positively stifling when they landed, but summer seemed to have yet to touch the mountain. As Claire took yet another endless, winding bend, they finally came upon a faded sign heralding the town’s limits:

##                                                 ENTERING  
                                           TRYON’S RIDGE  
                                                  Est. 1767

 There was an eerie silence that hung over the town. They saw not a soul out and about, save a few elderly gentlemen sitting outside storefronts. Finding the little Sheriff’s department didn’t take long, with one main street there was not much chance of getting lost. They walked in to find two solitary officers milling about. Claire strode forward with all the authority she had to the front desk, Jamie at her right shoulder, and pulled out her badge, flipping it open in one fluid motion.

“I’m agent Claire Beauchamp, with the FBI,” she said clearly, and gestured with her badge to Jamie, “and this is detective James Fraser from Scotland Yard. We’re here to see Sheriff Murchison. He’s expecting us.”

Jamie looked down, trying his best to stifle his smile. He’d seen people do that in the movies, but had never found it as cute and sexy as he did in that moment.

The officer at the desk barely looked up from his crossword though. “He’s out.”

“When will he back?” she asked, and Jamie noticed she diluted her accent a little, making it more neutral.

“He’s leading the search teams. He’ll be back when he gets back.”

Claire and Jamie exchanged a look. She could tell Jamie wanted to say something, but it was imperative they didn’t ruffle the locals feathers so soon after arriving. If they were going to have their cooperation, they needed to pick their battles. She gave him an infinitesimal shake of the head - _let it go._

“Is there a number where we can reach him?” she asked.

The officer finally looked up at them for the first time, took in Claire’s no-nonsense demeanor, his eyes widened taking in Jamie’s imposing presence at her shoulder. He sat up a little straighter.

“Reception’s spotty up in the woods, they’ll be back when the light begins to fade, but if you leave your number with me, I’ll have him call you when he gets back,” he said with a bit more professionalism.

With that, Claire and Jamie made their way to find some much needed sustenance. Save a couple bags of peanuts on the flight and a protein bar shared between them during the drive, neither had had anything to eat all day.

They found the local diner; a dingy place, with sticky counters, scratchy folk music oozing from the speakers over the blackboard menu and a constant smell of frying bacon and burnt coffee. There were four people inside - the cook, the waitress and two patrons. Jamie seemed absolutely enchanted by this glimpse of sleepy town Americana.

They sat in a booth opposite each other, the vinyl upholstery squeaking beneath them..

“I can already feel the heartburn just reading this,” Claire said with a sigh, looking over the more detailed laminated menus, a healthy variety practically nonexistent.

Jamie on the other hand looked positively giddy at all the greasy options.

“Och, a little grease ne’er killed anyone, Agent Beauchamp,” he said happily.

“You’ll find my medical degree disagrees with you there, detective,” she replied dryly. “Would you mind terribly if we took our dinner to go? I’d very much like to go over some of your casefiles.”

“Aye, that isna a problem,” he answered with a shrug, “But if ye dinna mind, would you please order me a double bacon cheeseburger, with fries? I’d like to ask those gentlemen over there a couple of questions-” seeing her about to protest, quickly added, “-dinna fash, I won’t ask anything invasive.” And off he went. Claire had half a mind to go after him, but the waitress was at her shoulder, ready to take their orders - who Jamie caught up with as she headed back to the kitchen, but whatever he’d asked, she’d only had a short answer for him. The vinyl squeaked alarmingly again as he sat heavily back down, with a sigh.

When it was clear he wasn’t going to offer up an explanation, Claire huffed with impatience. “Well?”

“‘Well’ what?” That cheeky gleam sparkling in his downcast eyes.

“Fraser,” she said with a deadly calm. “What did you ask them?”

“Och, that?” he took a picture out of his shirt pocket and slid it to her. “I just asked if they’d seen Raymond here abouts.”

“And? Have they?”

“That would be a no,” he said, sitting back and letting his head fall back onto the back of his booth. Stretching his long legs out under the table, he inadvertently brushed against Claire’s. Feeling the contact, he immediately sat up, “Sorry!” he said a bit sheepishly.

Ignoring the faint rosy tinge she was sure her cheeks had taken, she noted his exhaustion once more and vowed to herself she wouldn’t take up much of his night, knowing the next few days would be challenging and they’d both need their rest.

After getting their dinner, they made a quick stop at Tryon’s only gas station and while Claire sorted out refilling the rental car’s tank, Jamie ducked into the convenient store to grab a couple of six packs to go with dinner. They then made their way to the tiny motel just on the outskirts of town the waitress had recommended they could stay at. As Jamie got their bags from the boot (he’d come straight from the airport to the Bureau and Claire having had to make a quick stop at her apartment before their flight), Claire carried the boxes of casefiles and dinner. Jamie looked over the property; surrounded by the encroaching woods, the rooms - eight or nine of them - were set individually alongside each other, no lights shone from within, the main office set opposite the farthest room. The  _A_ and  _Y_ in the flashing Vacancy neon sign weren’t working and the only sign of life seemed to be in the main office, where the faint glow of a solitary bulb gleamed. The sun had just began to set, casting everything around them with an unnerving purple glow.

“I willna say ‘tis haunted, but it does have a rather Bates-y feel to it, no?” he whispered to Claire.

“Well, thank you for the nightmares,” she said with a shaky laugh, nudging him with her elbow. “Let’s get checked in.”

They were greeted by a lithe man in an over-sized shirt and an uncomfortably foxy smile, “Welcome!” he said, over exaggeratedly. After hasty introductions, Ronnie Sinclair - the motel’s owner - seemed to eye them with far more interest than Claire would’ve liked. “Come to help with the search, then, have ya? Terrible business that. A pretty young thing, too.”

“Something like that. Did you know the Christie girl?” Claire replied.

“No one really  _knew_ her, I’d venture to say. Her and her family kept to themselves. You’d see her about town though. She had a way about her, you know,” he added with a smirk looking at Jamie, “that’d draw men to her like flies”.

There was something disconcerting about Sinclair that made Claire want to end the conversation soon as she could. And with a look at Jamie, he immediately caught her meaning and pulled out Raymond’s picture. Once again though, the answer was no.

“Sorry couldn’t be more help. Will that be one or two rooms, then?” Sinclair asked, that foxy smile deepening. Jamie stiffened beside her.

“Two, please,” Claire answered promptly.

And as they made their way to their rooms after getting their keys, Sinclair called out, making Claire turn back. “Here’s the key to the adjoining door of your rooms. Just in case…” he said. At a loss for words, Claire silently took the key and left Sinclair with a nod of thanks.

As she caught up with Jamie she could hear him tunelessly humming under his breath “…  _ye can check out any time ye like, but ye can never leeeave …_ ”

“Will you stop that! Or I’ll eat all your onion rings,” she said, smiling.

“Ye got me onion rings?” he asked, pleasantly surprised at her thoughtfulness to add something extra for him when she didn’t have to.

“Yes, well, in for a penny, in for a pound and all that. You can’t have a burger and fries with no onion rings.”

“And beer too!” he said holding up the six-packs. “Thank ye.”

“Heart attack complete, I dare say. And it’s no trouble,” she said, returning his warm smile.

“Meet ye in yer room in ten?” Jamie asked as they got level with their respective doors. With a nod, they both took their leave to freshen up and change before getting stuck into the casefiles and a much needed dinner.

***

“Fraser?”

“Hmm?”

“You mentioned earlier that Raymond was seen in and around the time the girls went missing,” at his nod she sat back in her chair and rubbed her eyes, “well we haven’t found any evidence of him here-”

“- _Yet_ -”

“- _And_ apart from Malva Christie disappearing on the 30th of April-”

“-Beltane-”

“-I don’t see how this case relates to any of yours. There isn’t even - for argument’s sake - a standing stone circle anywhere-”

“-Ah! Now that’s where ye could be wrong!” he said and stood up to rifle through his box again, pushing his specs up his nose as he did so. Claire couldn’t help but smile. “As I said before, it isna always women. While researching the case of the 1968 missing Montauk Five, I found an old prospector’s map of this very mountain from 1756. Well, in truth he was more a mountain man than anything,” he said handing her a scan of yellow faded, crudely drawn map, “a John Myers claimed there was a site up in the woods near here, that both the Tuscarora and Mohawk found sacred. It was hard to get to, save by those who knew how. And no foreigners were ever allowed.”

“So how’d this Myers know where to look? And how on  _earth_ does researching a case from 1968 lead you to mountain men in 1756?!” Claire asked, looking at the chicken scratches that passed for a “map”. She looked up, every inch of her face etched with skepticism, to see a bemused look staring back at her.

“Ye dinna even ken the half of it, Beauchamp! Anyways, according to Myers, he was on such good terms with the Tuscarora, that they invited him once to a ceremony they held to celebrate the end of the harvest season…” He saw understanding bloom on her face.

“Samhain…” she whispered, sitting forward.

“Aye, but I’m sure they have their own name for it. It was such a strange and alien experience for Myers, that it was practically the only thing he ever put down on paper. His only mark on history.” He sat back down and took a swig of his beer.

They watched each other for a moment, their discarded empty food wrappings scattered over the table, a few of the empty beer bottles pushed aside to make room for their files. The only sound that of the ticking clock by the bedside. Claire leaned back and crossed her arms.

“You must know how this all sounds? Do you truly believe this Maitre Raymond is time traveling,” she said, trying her hardest not to snort, “to kidnap young women and men? To what end?”

“If it isna time travel, what then? How do ye explain Raymond showing up over centuries, over and over?” he countered.

“Logic dictates that it could simply be his descendants. These men may all look the same,” she gestured at the photos, “but they aren’t all of the same age. Here-” she pulled three out of the stack, “-1744, long gray hair. 1968, short black hair. 2014, short black hair.”

“Why would his descendants be kidnapping these people, then? To what end?” he parroted. She could tell he wasn’t being condescending, but genuinely curious. She rather thought he hadn’t had anyone to bounce ideas off of without being dismissed outright as a lunatic.

“I guess that’s why they put the “I” in FBI, isn’t it,” she said a little more cheekily than she intended, making him chuckle.  _This is why you shouldn’t be drinking on the job, Beauchamp_ , she thought. But she couldn’t deny, she liked hearing him laugh. She watched as he pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes, fatigue setting in. She knew they should have called it a night an hour ago, but she found she was reluctant to part with his company just yet. “Tell me about the Gaidhlig folktale you showed me back in DC,” she asked abruptly, pulling him back from exhaustion.

“Ye kent it was Gaidhlig?” he asked surprised.

At her nod, he smiled and stretched out his legs in front of him and arms above him, bringing them to rest behind his head, settling himself in for the telling. Tired as he was, he was still a Scot, and the chance to tell a tale was never passed up. “ _Born storytellers, the lot of them!_ ” uncle Lamb once told her. Watching Fraser now, it couldn’t have been more true.

“Well, ‘tis a story as auld as Scotland,” he began, his Scottish burr deepening with every word. “It was a time two hundred years ago, about a man out late on a faerie hill on the eve of Samhain, who hears the sound of a woman singing sad and plaintive from the very rocks of the hill: _‘I am a woman of Balnain. The folk have stolen me over again.’_  The stones seem to say,  _‘I stood upon the hill and the wind did rise and the sound of thunder rolled across the land’_ ,” his voice got low and deep, his ‘R’s rolling evermore. “ _’I placed my hands upon the tallest stone and traveled to a far, distant land. Where I lived for a time among strangers, who became lovers and friends’_ ,” he continued with a tinge of seductive air.  _“’But one day, I saw the moon came out and the wind rose once more. So I touched the stones and traveled back to my own land, and took up again with a man I had left behind.’_.”

“She came back through the stones?” Claire asked, her voice distant to her own ears, as if she’d barely pulled herself out of his voice’s enchantment.

“Aye, she did,” he replied, a smile tugging at his lips. “They always do.”

She met his gaze and held it. He’d been nothing but polite, professional and jovial all day, but whether it was the late hour, the alcohol, the fatigue, or all three, he guarded nothing behind those strikingly blue eyes of his now. Judging by the way his eyes darted to her lips, neither was she. The air between them near crackling. She took a deep breath to clear her head.

“It’s getting rather late…” she said, rising from her chair and breaking the spell.

“Aye, so it is,” he said, sounding somber as he got to his feet and followed her to the adjoining door, which she unlocked.

“Best get some rest, you look done in. We have a trying day ahead tomorrow.” She tried keeping her voice neutral as she held the door open for him.

“As ye say,” he replied, sliding past her, his big frame brushing against her. He turned then and leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets and waited - for what he wasn’t entirely sure. That is, until she smiled.

“Well, goodnight, detective,” she said, shutting the door, his last sight of her a rosy hue lightly flushing her cheeks.

“Goodnight,” he replied, and as the door clicked shut, added in a whisper, “Sassenach.”

***


	4. Chapter 4

## Chapter 4.

 

 Jamie woke the next morning feeling as though he’d shut his eyes only seconds earlier. As tired as he’d been, his mind had refused to shut down the night before. Thoughts of agent Beauchamp raced through it; the ease of her smile once she got accustomed to him, the cadence of her laugh, the adorable frown she wore when in deep thought and - even though he knew she didn’t believe him - the way she listened to him without judgement.

He lay unmoving, watching the pre-dawn shadows play against the walls. He knew she’d been hand picked to counterbalance him, maybe even for the sole purpose of discrediting him ( _God_ , how he hoped that wasn’t the case!), could see the cogs of her mind turn and assess everything he said, looking for the scientific explanation to his words. Everything he said she sifted through, picking and choosing what she found most useful. Yet, for the first time, he didn’t mind it. Didn’t mind getting his work scrutinized and seen from a different angle -  _her_ angle. She never condescended him, she was skeptical, yes, but never unnecessarily harsh or dismissive about it. Agent Claire Beauchamp disarmed him in a way he never thought he could be.

Jamie sat up rubbing hard at his face, berating himself for letting his mind wander so far, so rapidly. She’d been nothing but professional, inquisitive - if a wee bit flirty with a little help from the alcohol - and most of all, she valued her job and the work they did. She wouldn’t let some random person get in the way of that with some misguided notions of her intentions.

He needed a coffee,  _badly_ , he thought - and maybe go for a run to clear his head of the intrepid agent - as he jumped out of bed and grabbed his suitcase. And perhaps the run would give him a better scope and feel of the wee town’s layout.

***

Claire reluctantly rolled over and cracked her eye open a fraction.  _6:53 am_ , the clock blinked back at her. “Bugger,” she murmured as she pulled herself out of bed, ready to brain whoever was incessantly knocking on her door.

“Shouldn’t you be jet lagged somewhere?” she asked, voice gravelly with sleep, unamused by the cheery smile Fraser had plastered on his face. He seemed far too fresh for someone who’d just flown in from across the ocean.

“Cheer up, Beauchamp, I come bearing gifts, do I no?” he said and she noticed the coffee and crumpled brown bag in his arms.

“Forgiven,” she said the moment the odd combination of scents of coffee and chocolate muffin - and something greasy - hit her nose (not at all unpleasant, if she was being honest), and stood aside for him to enter. “Why are you up so early? Did you go for a  _run_?” regarding his shorts and sweaty tee with a mixture of awe and irritation.  _Of course he did. Morning people_ , she thought with a sigh.

He smiled - back turned to her as he laid out their breakfast on the table - at her incredulous tone.  _Not a morning person, then_ , he noted. He’d had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing when she’d wrenched the door open; brown, medusa hair a massive riot curling around her, her eyes scrunched together against the dim light, a look of bloody murder on her face. Her crumpled oversized Harvard tee. Her baggy pj bottoms… He smiled again. He’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“Aye, I did. Needed to clear my head. Plus I was starving!” he gestured for her to join him at the table where everything had been neatly laid out. “I didna ken how ye liked your coffee, but there wasna much option at the diner anyway, truth be told,” he said with a shrug while unwrapping his breakfast.

“What on earth is  _that_?” she asked, as she sat cross legged on the chair beside him, seeing what was emitting the greasy smell for the first time. She cradled her warm coffee in her hands, closed her eyes and took a long, deep inhale.

“Breakfast burger,” he said - ketchup packet caught between his teeth - as if astonished she’d not known that. “It’s got everything ye need between two buns!”

She’d eyed him with amusement as she munched on her muffin. Then a thought struck her as she registered what he’d said earlier. “Wait, did you say you got these from the diner?” at his nod she said, “Bit early for them to be open, no?”

“Aye, I’d said as much, but with the search teams coming and going, Amy Higgins - the waitress - said they’d practically been open around the clock. They’d just been getting ready for the morning rush,” he said casually, but Claire could tell he hadn’t woken her up at the ass-crack of dawn just to share breakfast together. She sat back watching him ruthlessly devour his burger.

“And the sheriff?”

“Canna avoid us if we’re up bright and early waiting for him there,” he said, giving her a toothy grin.

“I like the way you think, Fraser,” she replied, tucking into her own breakfast. “And I’m going to need another muffin and coffee before they run out.”

***

They stood amongst the early morning bustling bodies; police officers, volunteer firefighters, EMTs, men and women all milling about waiting for the sheriff and their next orders. This explained the town’s empty feel when they first arrived, Claire thought, everyone and anyone able in the small town was out searching for her.

They spotted Murchison easily enough. A big, brash looking man that seemed to relish doling out orders. He huddled around a map with three other men, marking off areas they’d already searched while decided where to search next.

“We’ll split into teams of three again. One group going as far as Beardsley’s Outpost, one to Mammoth Point and the other will double back through Musket Pass,” he was saying with cocky authority.

They waited till the three group leaders went off to coordinate with their teams before introducing themselves.

“Yes, I know who you are,” he said coldly, hands resting on his hips - one on his belt, the other on his gun’s pummel. “And frankly, I don’t see the point of the FBI being here. We’re perfectly capable of finding a missing girl on  _our_  mountain.”

“We aren’t here to step on your toes, Sheriff,” Claire said patiently, as Jamie scanned the map laid out on the table. “We’re just here to give you additional support and resources toward finding the girl.”

“Look,” Murchison said, stepping toward her, making Jamie’s head snap up, “I don’t think you’re hearing me,  _agent_ , we’d like to do this quietly, find the girl before the summer rush of hikers really begins, and having Feds skulking about making a fuss over one reckless girl, isn’t doing things quietly, is it?” Murchison leered.

“Our investigation will not interfere with your search-”

“Listen, sweetheart,” Murchison spat, his shallow professional veneer slipping completely. Claire grabbed Jamie’s forearm as he made to step forward. “I don’t know what the Bureau is playing at sending two outsiders up here, but you can interview every single person in this town and they’ll all tell you the same thing - that the Christie girl was nothing but trouble, disguised in a neat, pious package. Only reason everyone’s banded together to find her is because their livelihoods and that of the town depends on this place staying untainted by scandal. So go ahead, do your little investigation and good luck to you, but stay out of our way.”

He made to walk away, but Claire wasn’t done with him. “We’ll need a thorough contact list and where we can find everyone we’ll need to be speaking to, if you  _please_. And not that you need reminding, I’m sure, but the Bureau doesn’t take kindly to their investigations being…  _Impeded_  in any way. We expect your full cooperation.”

“And a copy of all your maps,” Jamie added forcefully, “everywhere ye’ve searched, and everywhere yer yet to.”

They stared him down a moment, Murchison looking positively mutinous. But eventually conceded. “Hodgepile!” he yelled at no one in particular, and a scrawny looking deputy emerged from the swarm of bodies. “Assist them,” Murchison nodded towards them, and left without another word.

***

Murchison, the bloody bugger, was right. Everyone they spoke to that morning said basically the same thing; Malva Christie was an odd girl. While her family were extremely religious, the girl herself seemed to have developed an unspoken reputation in town over the last few months. Quiet, unassuming angel by day, Malva apparently transformed into a brazenly promiscuous young woman by night. She’d been studying online to become a nurse and worked at the local pharmacy four days a week, which left her a lot of free time generally.

And for the past few years, she (and sometimes her brother, Allan as well) had been known to go camping up in the woods a few times a year. It wasn’t uncommon to do so, given the town’s reputation as a hiker’s base. What was uncommon, according to some, was that Malva had begun to vanish up into the woods on her own, 2-3 days at a time, more frequently over the last few months. Some believed she’d been meeting young gentlemen - to which Claire’d scoffed at the term; the “ _young gentlemen_ ” being just as willing and culpable in whatever acts were possibly happening up there. And others believed, much to Claire and Jamie’s surprise, Malva was involved in something far more darker, more sinister.

They were yet to interview Malva’s father, Tom, and brother Allan, who had been up at the searchers base camp at the crack of dawn, everyday since they’d reported her missing.

“ _If_  she was meeting a lover and/or lovers up there,” Claire said around a mouthful of pizza, “then surely one of them would’ve stepped forward by now, don’t you think? Given them a specific area to search?”

“Not necessarily,” Jamie said, taking a swig of orange juice. They’d grabbed a hasty lunch, which they ate perched on the boot of the car, currently parked at the foot of the trail that led up to the searchers base camp. “This town seems very concerned about keeping up a wholesome and conservative appearance. If these men are respected members of the community, they wouldn’t want their names associated with Malva, would they?” Claire nodded. “Besides, I get the feeling this town hasn’t much in way of entertainment and thrives on gossip. And perhaps found an easy target in Malva.”

“Perhaps… Still, gossip has to start from something, I just wonder what that could be. It wouldn’t take much in a place like this,” Claire added.

“I canna shake why they’d think she was doing something sinister though,” Jamie mused, watching the tree line ahead of him as if it held the answers. “She doesna have any history of violent or erratic behavior. By all accounts - apart from supposedly being “loose” - the girl kept to herself, was good at her job according her boss, was never late and was always polite to customers. Was a church going lass, to boot. What would make them think she’d turn malevolent by night?”

Claire smiled slightly. “You’re the paranormal expert, you tell me? Is she a warewolf, howling at the moon, bare as the day she was born?” Jamie threw his crumpled up tissue at her, which she caught with a flourish after fumbling it only once. “Well, her boss did say she’d taken a keen interest in herbal remedies of late. And I do remember reading that back in the 18th Century, this area had once been notoriously punishing on anything they deemed pagan or witchcraft. A couple of documented cases suggested they’d tried and convicted two women that had been suspected of practicing witchcraft. Perhaps some of that stigma of things outside of their understanding and control still lingers generations later. You saw how Murchison reacted to not just the presence of the FBI being here, but two foreigners, no less. Something tells me, they don’t take too kindly or quickly to things outside their comfort zones.”

“Aye, I can see that all too well,” Jamie said, hopping off the boot after finishing his last bite of pizza. “Coming from the Highlands, can’t say I’m a stranger to superstitions standing the test of time,” he winked at her, as she slid off the boot as well, giving him a sarcastic look in return. “C'mon then, Sassenach,” he said, helping clear up their empty pizza box and juice bottles, “let’s go  _dazzle_  the locals with our foreign-ness some more, yeah?”

***


	5. Chapter 5

## Chapter 5.

 They’d called ahead so that the two Christie men were waiting for them at the base camp when they finally arrived after their short hike up. Claire and Jamie had decided as they walked, to divide and conquer - Claire questioning Tom, while Jamie questioned Allan. The two men looked antsy and irritable having been made to wait while the search teams headed out.

“I know you’re eager to get back out there, Mr. Christie,” Claire said after having pulled Tom aside to interview him, “so I won’t take up much of your time and get straight into it. Could you tell me anything of Malva’s state of mind in the days leading up to her disappearance? Did anything strike you as odd or out of place in any way?”

Tom Christie was a gruff man. Scruffy beard, tall, with a righteous air about him. He shifted his feet, his irritation growing. “No,” he said shortly, “She went about as she always did. Quietly. She’d planned to take two days up in the mountains, which wasn’t unusual for her around this time of year. We’d planned on going as a family this time, but my son and I fell ill, so Malva went on on her own. She likes the peace and quiet. But when she wasn’t back by the fourth day, I called sheriff Murchison.”

“And did Malva have anyone special in her life that she could’ve have met-”

“No. Malva wasn’t allowed boyfriends.”

“She was 20, am I correct?”

“She  _is_ , agent Beauchamp! My girl is out there and the FBI has nothing better to do than ask me trivial questions?” Christie snapped at her. He was tightly strung and Claire could tell it wouldn’t take much to have him raging.

“I apologize, Mr. Christie. I’d just like to get a better feel of your daughter. Like were her hiking trips always around the same time every year? Was there particular significance with the date? It seems to have been rather common knowledge she made these trips, but the question as to why is still a mystery. I'm just trying to understand.”

Christie took a steadying breath, he glanced over his shoulder at his son and Jamie a few metres away. “Don't think I don't know what people in town say about Malva,” he said, voice low, “but she isn't like that. I know her quietness, her shyness, felt odd to many, but she was a good girl. She didn't run off to meet some  _man_! Something's happened to her, I can feel it and every second I waste here with you, I could be spending out there looking for her!”

His gruff veneer cracked and a solitary tear escaped him. Claire placed a consolatary hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

“And I'll take up no more of your time. I just have one last request. This may seem intrusive, and you have my word it isn't, but my partner and I would like your permission to have a look around Malva's room-” seeing his eyes flash with anger, she continued hastily, “-you never know where clues to what's happened will arise, Mr. Christie. However small, anything could help. Has anyone searched her room? Her computer?”

“No. No one's been in there since Malva was last there,” he replied sadly.

“You have my word, Mr. Christie, we just want to be thorough. Explore every avenue we need to to find her,” Claire said kindly. She chanced a glance over Christie’s shoulder at Jamie. Whatever he and Allan were discussing it’d made Jamie’s shoulders taut with suspicion. She’d heard the boy’s voice rise in agitation throughout her conversation with his father, but hadn’t been able to catch his words.

Christie let out an exhausted sigh, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, but relented. “Fine, you have my permission. Do whatever you need to and be done with it. Today. Allan will go with you. Search her room, search the whole damn house if you like. We have nothing to hide, agent Beauchamp,” he said turning towards his son. “Boy! You’ll take the agents back to the house, help them with anything they need,” seeing his son begin to protest, added, “and I’ll have no more lip from you, not today! Do as they say.” With that, Christie bid them goodbye and hurried off to catch up with one of the search teams as quickly as he could.

Allan huffed but held his tongue and as he and Jamie came level with Claire, she could see Jamie needed to tell her something, but seemed to struggle with how to with Allan at his elbow. She raised an eyebrow at him.

Decision dawned on his face, and remembering his first meeting with agent Beauchamp when she’d immediately understood his codename for Raymond, he said, “ _le fils cache quelque chose_.”  _The son is hiding something_. Her eyebrows shot up, but she quickly schooled her features to neutrality before Allan caught on. Judging by the blank look on his face, he had no clue what language Jamie had spoken, let alone what he’d said.

Claire gave Allan a judicious once over as they made their way back down the trail to the car. He was a twitchy young man, skinny and short of temper, judging from his animated conversation with Jamie.

“ _His father didn’t know much_ ,” Claire replied in French, “ _seems he had a very puritanical image of his daughter. Siblings tend to have a more… unfiltered view of things,_ ” she said as they let Allan lead the way.

“Aye,” Jamie replied, his eyes boring into the Christie boy’s back.

***

The rest of the journey went by in relative silence, save Allan giving them directions they needed to the Christie house. By silent agreement, Claire and Jamie decided not push Allan just yet. They knew they needed to get a look at Malva’s room first.

The Christie house was - to put it kindly - a disaster. Dishes overflowed in the sink, takeout containers lay strewn on every surface, discarded missing persons flyers lay in piles on the floor, and the air itself smelled stale and unwashed.

“Malva’s the one who would take care of things like that,” Allan murmured, seeing the inquisitive looks on their faces.

He led them to Malva’s room, but hesitated at the door. Sensing this, Jamie said with authority, “wait for us in the living room, we won’t be long,” dismissing Allan neatly.

“I dinna like him,” Jamie whispered once they’d slipped into Malva’s room and heard the living room tv go on.

“What did he  _say_ to you?” Claire asked, pitching her voice low as well, curious to see this side of detective Fraser. She wandered over to Malva’s bedside table, opening the drawers, hoping to find a journal or something similar, while Jamie went straight for her computer.

“It wasna so much what he said, but how he said it. He’s a dodgy wee bugger. The way he speaks of Malva… I’ll tell ye, Beauchamp, I have a sister and I dinna ever speak of her so,” he said, turning to give Allan a look of dislike through the wall.

“Ew, what?” Claire shouted in a whisper, pausing in her search to turn to Jamie as he turned the computer on.

“By all accounts, he plays the concerned brother well, but call it instinct if ye like, something runs deeper in that lad,” he said, face illuminated by the computer screen’s light.

“Think he had something to do with her disappearance?”

“Could be, could be no… but the lad’s definitely hidin’ something. The lass’s computer isna password protected,” he added, pulling out his glasses and popping them on.

“Given how strict her father seemed, I’m not surprised,” Claire said, coming to stand at his shoulder, peering at the screen. Her search of the bedside table, bed and mattress coming up empty.

A picture of all three Christies donned the desktop’s home screen. They stood in front of the local church looking somber. Malva flanked by her father and brother.

“Happy bunch,” Claire whispered, her warm breath tickling the hairs on his neck.

The folders on the desktop all seemed to be related to her nursing course. Nothing personal jumped out, no games, or pictures, no music or anything that indicated Malva used the computer for anything other than her courses. Jamie clicked on the browser, as Claire moved to the vanity.

“Wouldn’t the lass have to do some training at a hospital, doesna seem like she could get the training she’d need just from online courses, no?” Jamie asked, looking through her browser history.

“She would, but doesn’t look like she was yet. No one mentioned her training at any clinics or hospitals. Only that she’d started the course. And I can’t find any evidence anywhere that she’d physically started her training-”

“Sassenach…”

“Hmmm?” Claire turned to him.

“Come take a look at this.”

She leaned over his shoulder once more and saw the cursor beside a folder with a tiny padlock in the top right corner.

“It’s the only thing on here that’s password protected,” he whispered. “The lass doesna even clear her browser history that I can tell, but this wee folder she’s hidden within four other folders.”

“Should I call tech to see if we can get someone up here to crack the password?” she said, peeking over her shoulder, making sure Allan wasn’t lurking.

“Nah, I dinna think ye need to. Remember the army tutor I told ye about? Well  _his_ courses were very extensive,” Jamie said, typing furiously away in a small black box he’d opened beside the folder.

Unable to help herself she snorted and squeezed his shoulder as she went to search Malva’s closet. At first glance the closet seemed filled with bland, modest gray outfits, but as Claire pushed some of these aside, she heard the backboard loosely creak, and curious, began knocking at it gently. It sounded hollower than it should’ve been. After a few more moments of investigating, she managed to find a latch and slid the false backboard open and was hit by a shock of red, sparkly black, sequined blues, an assortment heels, accessories and a small makeup box hidden well at the back. “Well, then,” she said standing aside giving a Jamie a view of the hidden panel. “A quid says we find pot under the floorboards,” she said, making him snort now.

He went back to his typing, but after a few minutes, he paused. Then breathed, “Christ.” He’d not just unlocked one folder. Seemed there were several more hidden within. He opened one at random.

Claire immediately went to his side and it took her a moment to register what she was seeing. “Is that…?”

“Aye, I think it is. Instructions on how to perform a Summoning.”

“ _Summoning_ what, exactly?!” Claire asked, not bothering to mask her shock.

“I dinna ken, but seems Malva Christie was far more than met the eye, aye,” Jamie said, turning to look at Claire. Not realizing how close her face was to his, his nose brushed her cheek, making him quickly turn back to the screen.

“Seems so. I just hate there actually did seem to be some truth to what everyone was saying about her,” she said, sadly.

“Ye did say gossip has to start somewhere. And ‘tis a small town,” he said, clicking on a few more folders. “Looks like Malva was communicating with someone. There’s links in here to a private chat-room, going back a few months.”

“Think you can make a copy of those, so we can have a look at them back at the motel?”

“Aye,” he said, squinting at the screen, “I dinna have a flash drive wi’ me, but I can just email it all to myself. It may take a wee bit of time though, seems a somewhat large folder, in all.”

***

They meticulously poured over the files Jamie had gotten off Malva’s computer, what - upon a deeper investigation - turned out to be a virtual Grimoire. Summoning charms, spells to ward off evil, hexes and enchantments, complete with how-to diagrams. Claire had never seen anything like it. The further they delved into the files, the more sinister things got.

She’d been communicating with someone that only identified as ‘ _GD_ ’, for near five months. Someone who at first glance read like a sympathetic ear to Malva’s problems - which seemed to stem from her father and brother’s stifling rigidity. Malva yearned to break free from her quiet, closely monitored life, and  _GD_ held the hope. It was a case of perfectly executed textbook grooming on a young, naive mind. Slowly but surely,  _GD_ meticulously picked and pulled, molded and introduced Malva to things that promised freedom and peace. But something shifted three months before Malva’s disappearance. She’d become panicky, urgent and begged  _GD_ for a quick escape. “ _I can’t breathe!_ ” she’d said a month before going missing, to which  _GD_ replied, “ _Everything is in place, sweetheart. We just have to wait for the opportune moment._ ”

“It didna take much for  _GD_ to have Malva eatin’ out of the palm of their hand,” Jamie said quietly. “The girl was desperate as it was. She’s tried to delete some of their correspondences, as she was instructed, but enough’s been left behind to piece together she was planning on meeting this  _GD_ up in the woods.”

Claire - who’d been going over the lists Malva had made for draughts, tonics and all manner of concoctions - looked up to see him frowning back at her. “What are you thinking,” she asked.

He sat back and roughly ran his hand through his hair. “From what I can piece together, Malva seems to have found  _GD_ while researching herbal remedies for her nurses course. The lass already seemed vulnerable, aye?” Claire nodded, “and this  _GD_ took swift advantage of that. But why Malva? Why target some young lass who’d never even left Tryon’s Ridge?”

Claire shrugged. “ _GD_ seemed particularly interested in not just the history of this place, but also the flora of it. They’d been teaching Malva how to find and identify different species of plants out here. Individually, they are completely harmless, some even beneficial to different ailments. But some of these… If put together, could be rather dangerous.” She looked at Jamie for a long time before asking, “do you still think this has to do with Raymond?”

“I honestly dinna ken anymore. I can't help but think it's still connected to the missing women, though. It wouldna be the first time there's been hints of witchcraft involved,” he said.

“For argument's sake, let's say these women actually believed in witchcraft, why go to all this trouble?” Claire asked, gesturing to the numerous files.

“Well, we ken Malva at least wanted some kind of escape from her life. If she wasna getting it at church, perhaps she sought other outlets? Perhaps the other women needed similar escapes.”

“And tinkering with some of these elements listed here, one could certainly create strong enough hallucinogens to make it  _seem_ like witchcraft was real,” Claire said, looking over the list.

“Is that what ye think witchcraft is, then?” He asked amused, “just one big psychedelic trip?”

“Come now, Fraser, it's been well documented that the fear of witches stemmed from overzealous, uneducated townsfolk whipped into hysteria. What was simply men and women having basic knowledge of the properties of plants, as well as other natural elements and their medicinal values, were branded heretics. Alchemy in the renaissance was viewed with such mysticism and fear, when it was nothing more than glorified chemists playing with different elements to see what would happen. You can trace most modern medicines and treatments today back to their more mystical beginnings if you look hard enough.

“Did some go too far and enjoy the notoriety that came with it? Of course. Part of making people believe in your product or “magic” was to add a layer of flamboyant flare and pomp to it. Some ineligible chant here, a splash of goats blood there, mix in a dollop of folklore and legend, and  _voila_! You have yourself a bonafide witch!”

Jamie’s deep throaty chuckle and the rasp of his fingers against his scruff as he scratched his jaw, rattled her bones. There was no denying it to herself anymore, she was attracted to detective Fraser and a part of her hated that she was. Not the attraction, but that it should happen now of all times, when she was working a case that deserved the respect of her full attention. But she couldn't help it, she was glad he was here, helping her through what was turning out to be a far more complicated case than she initially thought it'd be.

Her phone buzzed, pulling her out of her reverie. “Agent Beauchamp,” she said and her face immediately took on a grave expression. Jamie cocked his eyebrow at her once she’d hung up. “That was deputy Hodgepile,” she said, grabbing her coat. Jamie, noting her urgency, stood and did the same. Claire turned to him, his arm halfway through the sleeve, “Sheriff Murchison’s gone missing.”

***


	6. Chapter 6

## Chapter 6

 When Claire and Jamie walked into the sheriff’s department, it was utter chaos. Deputies and volunteers running around like headless chickens, words like “helicopters” “search dogs” and “national guard’ were being shouted across the room. Jamie - being able to easily see over everyone there - spotted Hodgepile, phone pressed to his ear, at the center of the melee.

“Deputy!” Claire shouted over the dinging noise around the room. “What happened?”

It took a thoroughly flustered Hodgepile a moment to register who they were. “Murchison got a call from one of the search teams, they’d spotted something suspicious up near one of the trails and so he went to check out. When he hadn’t checked in a couple of hours later, a few of us went after him and found this,” he gestured at a bloodied log, roughly the size of a rounders bat, “there wasn’t much sign of a struggle. Seems he may have been taken by surprise.”

Claire and Jamie exchanged a look.

“What was Murchison checking out exactly?” Jamie asked.

Hodgepile swallowed heavily and set the phone down. “One of the volunteers you questioned at the diner yesterday - Hermon Husband - claimed he’d seen the man from your photo, detective.”

Jamie’s eyes flashed red with anger at once. “Why weren’t we notified immediately,” he ordered, making Hodgepile flinch.

“Hermon wasn’t sure what he even saw! He said he’d seen the figure at a distance, in amongst the trees. It seemed odd anyone should be there, so deep in the woods. And Murchison said not to, said we should hold off on calling you until he’d checked it out himself!”

“Christ,” Claire breathed, “you realize, deputy, you just admitted to obstructing a federal investigation?”

As Claire read him for filth, Jamie went straight to the map on the table and noted the trail Murchison had gone missing. He pulled out his own map and marked the area, then grabbed Claire by the elbow, interrupting her mid sentence.

“We have to go,” he whispered to her, ignoring her look of confusion.

Soon as they were out of the building and earshot of anyone, Claire turned to him. “What is it? What are you thinking?”

He didn’t say anything till they got to the car. “We need to get to the sporting goods store, then back to the motel as quick as possible,” he said urgently.

Claire peeled them out of the parking lot and headed towards the store.

“Jamie, talk to me, what are you thinking?” she asked again.

He’d put on his specs and was frowning at his map. “They’ve been looking in the wrong place, Sassenach.”

***

Everything was laid out on her bed. Everything they’d bought from the store, meticulously checked and rechecked. Hiking boots and clothes, first aid kits, food, satellite phone, walkie talkies, batteries, flares… Everything and anything they could possibly need waiting to be packed into their camping backpacks.

“ _What do you mean ‘looking in the wrong place’?_ ” she’d asked him agitatedly.

“ _Remember the John Myers story? Well, I’ve been keeping track of everywhere the search parties have gone. They’ve concentrated their efforts mostly North and North East of here - the commonly traveled trails. Myers’ map marked the stone circle about four days_ West  _of where we are now. Murchison was taken on a trail that forked west of where the search teams were._ ”

She didn’t bother asking if he was sure. She could hear the confidence in his voice all too well.

“ _We should call in for more resources-_ ”

“ _No! We can't afford to waste anymore time. If it really was Raymond this Husband spotted in the woods, then this will be the closest I've ever been to him! We need to get out there now, Claire. Please._ ”

And so, here she stood fifteen minutes after leaving the store,  _actually_ considering heading into a harsh wilderness, to chase a phantom. There was a light knock on the adjoining door and Jamie poked his head round.

“Ready?” he asked. He'd already changed, looking like Bear Grylls about to conquer the bloody mountain. She mentally shrugged, she supposed he  _was_ going to conquer the mountain if it meant catching Raymond.

“Almost,” she answered. “I made some calls for extra support as we go ahead. Left Hodgepile in charge while we're gone.”

“If Raymond has Murchison, he can't be that far ahead of us, lugging a body about in the woods isna easy work. But we really need to hurry,” he said, adjusting his hiking watch.

“Before we leave,” Claire said, crossing the room to her suitcase and pulling out a small, silver munitions box. She'd had her firearm with her at all times, but Jamie hadn’t been given clearance to yet. Director Campbell had given her the authority to assign him a firearm should he prove to need it in the field. Going out into the mountains to face an unknown threat seemed to qualify as a need, she thought. She took out a handgun, box of ammo and an extra clip. She'd already packed her clip and ammo. “Here. Something tells me we may need all the help we can get. If only to ward off the bears at least,” she added with a smile.

“Thank ye. I didna think I'd get one, if I'm being honest. Hold on…” he said and rushed out of the room. He came back moments later with a worn out shoulder holster that he put on with practiced ease. Seeing the look on her face, he shrugged and said, “I didna  _think_ , but I still hoped, aye. Plus it’s a wee bit more comfortable wearing it so, instead of on yer hip, especially while hiking.”

“I'll be sure to keep that in mind for the next time,” she said skeptically.

***

They left the motel and were well on their way up the trail twenty minutes later, and while they started at a quick, brisk pace, Jamie quickly noticed hiking was not one of agent Beauchamp’s strengths. But stubbornly determined as she was, she’d long stopped talking and focused all her energy on keeping up with him. It didn’t take them long to find where Murchison had been taken and even though all the footprints led away from the western path, they stepped off the well worn path and ventured into an untouched wilderness that sent a shiver down Claire’s spine.

_You better be bloody right, Fraser_ , she thought as the trees swallowed the trail behind them.

They walked for hours, the terrain unforgiving. Claire put all her attention on watching Jamie's back and footing. He seemed a natural mountaineer, moving over the uneven land with ease. For every one, long stride of his, she'd had to take two or three of her own. She could tell that even though he kept an unrelenting pace, he still wasn’t exerting himself - for her. As much as Jamie's first instinct was to go as fast as he could, he was always acutely aware of Claire: whether she was winded or needed a five minute rest to share a protein bar and a few sips of water, he’d always been cognizant of her. She’d quietly thanked him.

After a while though, she felt her muscles relax and start moving with a more flexible ease of their own. Claire wasn't sure exactly what Jamie was following, but he moved with such surety that she didn't question it.

After what seemed an eternity, he suddenly stopped and abruptly crouched, calling for her over to catch up to him. As she came level with him she caught a glimpse of crimson.

“Two sets of tracks. One light with a short gait, the other somethin’ large and heavy’s been through here,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the area they'd just been through, as she crouched beside him. “We've been following the trail for a few miles now, but this is the first sign I've seen of blood.”

_He can track,_  she thought and somehow it didn't surprise her.

“Murchison and his attacker. But if Murchison is on his feet why not fight back if the assailant is smaller?” she asked, dipping a finger into the small puddle of blood and rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s fresh. They can't be too far ahead of us.”

“I dinna think Murchison has much of a choice in the matter. It’s hard to tell but seems his stride is in front of whoever's he's with. He may be bound or at gunpoint,” Jamie mused, as he stood and rotated on the spot, surveying their surroundings.

“If he has a head wound, he could easily be disoriented as well,” Claire put in. “But given the amount of blood - or lack thereof - his wound's either began to clot or it's been bound.”

“Dammit!” Jamie exclaimed, “it’s going to get dark soon. We need to make camp.”

***

They found a relatively flat spot to set up camp ten minutes later, Jamie putting up their tents side by side as Claire sorted out the fire, dusk falling slowly around them. When he looked over to see if she was managing alright, he was completely surprised to see the ingenious angled conveyor belt system she’d rigged up for the logs.

Seeing his shock, she smiled shyly. “When the bottom log burns to ash, the next one will take its place. Should keep us warm till morning,” she explained.

“And how does a gently reared lady such as yerself ken how to do such a thing?” he asked unable to hold back his smile. He sat down cross-legged beside her and handed her a packet of dehydrated chicken and a small cooking pot and spoon. “I wouldna have guessed ye kent yer way about the wild so.”

She let out a breath of a laugh. A sound that warmed him far more thoroughly than the blazing fire in front of him. She poked at the fire and said, “when I was young, my uncle taught me how to survive outdoors. He - Lamb - was an archaeologist...” she paused a moment, thinking, weighing her words. He could tell she was debating how much to share about herself. She took a deep breath though and carried on. “After my parents died, he took me in. I was “home-schooled” by him, but I use the term ‘home’ pretty loosely. We spent more time outdoors than we did in them,” she laughed, the memories flooding back to her. “We had to take whatever the land offered. I picked up a few useful tips. It has been  _quite_ awhile since I was last out like this, though.”

“Aye, I’d say so,” he replied, holding their pots over the fire.

“Where’d you learn to track like that? The army?” Claire asked.

“Och, no. I grew up on a farm in the Highlands. I told ye I come from a long line of army men?” She nodded, “well, ever since I could walk, we’d be out on the Munros and woods, tracking this or that. Like ye, I think I spent most of my time outdoors too when I was a lad. The army only sharpened the hobby, made it a skill.” He was quiet for a moment, as if trying to find the words for what seemed to have been plaguing him the entire hike. “Do ye… Do ye think she’s still alive?” he asked, looking into the flames as if they held the answer.

She considered for a moment. Her heart always held hope, she couldn’t do the job otherwise. But there was an undeniable, growing sense of dread the longer they were in Tryon’s Ridge. She sighed deeply. “I don’t know. So much time has gone by… I just don’t know.”

They sat then in silence for a while then, while they ate. The forest around them seemed to swallow all sounds of modernity, plunging them into an absolute, natural hush. If Claire didn’t know better, she wouldn’t have thought they’d left the bustle of civilization mere hours ago. The forest itself felt alive, watching.

“Feels like there are eyes all around us, no?” Jamie echoed her thoughts.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. It’s going to be long night,” she said with a shaky laugh, a shiver running down her spine.

Little did she know how true that statement would turn out to be.

***

They settled into their respective tents shortly after dinner, intending to get a pre-dawn start, but for a long while, Claire lay in her sleeping bag listening to the soothing crackle of the fire - the more she knew she had to sleep, the less sleep she felt. She wondered if Jamie was having a similar problem, when the wind picked up, swirling round their small clearing. She saw the fire’s flames through her tent, dance violently. A rumble of rolling thunder sounded in the distance.

Then a sound that stopped her heart suddenly echoed through every fibre of her being. What she thought was merely the howl of the wind, carried with it a melody that chilled the very marrow of her bones, paralyzing to the spot she lay. A woman’s voice hauntingly chanted on the wind, like wisps of mists from a far distance, yet beautifully hypnotic as if she whispered mere inches from Claire’s ear.

_You have to move!_ she thought, but fear held her in place. As the voice gently wailed on though, Claire took a few steadying breaths and tried to call for Jamie. Her voice rasped, unable to hold the panic that was building within her at bay.

“Jamie!” she shouted in a whisper as best she could a few times.

“Aye!” he replied, sounding just as shaken as she did.

“Do you hear it?!”

“Like it’s in my fucking bones!”

“Will you  _please_  get over here!”

She heard him rustle in his tent, the zip barely audible over the voice on the wind. She scrambled to her knees so she could unzip her tent for him when a flash of dry lightning illuminated the clearing. Jamie was at her tent’s entrance a few seconds later, just as she unzip it, her fingers shaking uncontrollably. She pulled in his sleeping bag and grabbed his arm to pull him in too as a crack of brush drew his attention behind him. She followed his gaze. Another flash of lightning threw everything into an eerie silver glow, and there, just by the treeline opposite them stood Raymond. Watching. A moment and another flash later, he was gone.

Jamie swore in Gaidhlig and made to go after him, but Claire’s grip on his arm tightened painfully.

“Don’t you leave me!” she said, panicked. “There’s no way you’ll find him in the dark, you’re more likely to hurt yourself than find him.”

She saw the indecision war within him, but he relented and let her pull him into her tent and zip it shut. The voice’s plaintive cry sang for a few minutes longer, before fading away completely into a hush that even the nocturnal animals didn’t break. Jamie settled down beside her, whispering what she thought was a prayer in Gaidhlig. Cramped as it was, she was more than relieved to have his warm and solid body next to her. As he adjusted himself, he instinctively took her hand in his.

Neither found sleep that night, nor were they able to let go of each other.

But they did find comfort in one another.

***


	7. Chapter 7

## Chapter 7.

 Claire started awake from a fretful doze to find a purple dawn and Jamie gone. Panic gripped her chest and she frantically scrambled to her knees and crawled out of the tent.

“Jamie?”

“Over here!” he replied immediately. Popping up from behind the bushes they’d seen Raymond standing near the night before. She let out a breath of relief and made her way to him.

“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked by way of greeting when she got to him.

“No yet, was waiting for ye. Plus I wanted to check this area out soon as dawn broke,” he said frowning at the ground. “We have a problem,” he said irritably, grabbing a clump of dirt.

“Just one?” she breathed.

“Aye, well… I dinna think Murchison was taken by Raymond,” he said throwing the dirt back down and stood up.

“How can you be sure? You said the gait with Murchison was light and small. And from what we saw last night,” she shivered, “Raymond’s certainly small.”

“But he isna light. These footprints here,” he gestured around him and out towards the woods, “fall slightly deeper than the ones we saw yesterday. There's someone else out here, Sassenach. I'm sure of it. Judging by the pattern I saw yesterday compared to these… I’d say it was a woman.”

That took Claire by surprise, her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. “I suppose it’s possible, if she caught Murchison by surprise. But why take him at all? Why not just leave him injured on the trail?” Jamie shook his head, at a loss to find an answer.

They moved back to their camp and prepared a hasty breakfast of coffee and dehydrated eggs.

“Jamie…” Claire said hesitantly. Trying to find a way to broach the subject of what had occurred the night before.

“Aye?”

“What do you think it was? The voice last night?”

He sat a moment, thinking. “I honestly canna say. But if I were to guess, some kind of… Incantation maybe? But I've never heard of such a phenomena as what we experienced last night. Voices dinna usually catch continually on the wind like that.”

“That we yet know of,” Claire replied, trying to find a rational explanation. Anything to make it less frightening. “Could have been some kind of wind vortex caused by the dry thunder. Perhaps we were just caught in the middle of it.”

“Aye, perhaps,” Jamie said slowly, taking a sip of coffee. “Whatever it was though, made me near shit myself,” he said with a laugh, making Claire unexpectedly spray coffee everywhere as she snorted with laughter.

***

They set off shortly after following Raymond’s trail, their pace faster than it was the day before. About an hour into their trek, the trail led them to a smaller clearing than the one they'd spent the night in. Claire felt Jamie stiffen and draw his gun. She quickly followed suit. As soon as she entered the clearing, she caught sight of what had caused him to react so.

A small tower of uneven pebbles stood about half a foot high in the middle of a perfectly circular clearing.

“A cairn? Out here?” she said looking around to see if there were anymore.

“And this,” Jamie said a few metres from her. She looked down to see him nudge a small bundle of thorny plants, plucked roughly by the roots. All bound together by a black thread. A single crushed primrose and a small piece of jaggedly broken bone at its centre. “It’s an ill-wish,” he said with utter distaste, before she could ask, “it’s meant to bring pain or harm. Or even death,” he finished, kicking it aside.

“You mean…”

“Aye, last night. I believe what we heard was a Summoning, Sassenach.”

“Again I ask, summoning  _what_ exactly?!”

“Fuck if I know! But someone’s out here playing with forces beyond their ken.”

“Do you believe they’ve actually summoned something?”

“It doesna really matter what I or you believe. Whoever is out here wholly believes what they’re doing is real. And that’s scarier to me than anything else.”

“How’s that?”

He put his gun back into the holster and walked towards her. “There’s nothing more dangerous than a true and unwavering believer of anything. They’d be willing to go to any lengths to protect and defend that belief - no matter how outrageous.”

***

The rest of the next two days went on without anymore strange sightings or experiences, save an overwhelming feeling of not being alone hovering over them. And even though nothing else had happened, by silent agreement they'd shared the same tent every night since the first. Only able to let sleep take them once safely hand in hand.

The fourth day however, dawned with an ominous feel to it. Jamie had told her they weren't too far from where he suspected Myers’ stone circle was, and the few times they did come across any tracks, they all seemed to lead toward it.

Three people. Two traveling together, one right behind. And Claire and Jamie, gaining ground with every step, closer to their targets.

***

It was near dusk when they crested yet another ridge when a pair of agitated voices reached them. They exchanged a startled look - even though they'd been following them, it was still a jolt to hear voices other than their own after days alone. By instinct they both pulled out their firearms as snippets of the voices reached them.

“ _It does not work this way!_ ” a man was chastising. His accent heavy and labored.

“ _You should ken better than I that it does! A life taken is a journey made!_ ” said a woman, her accent heavy as well. But certainly not labored and with a complete conviction Claire had seldom heard.

Claire and Jamie dropped their packs quietly and crept slowly towards the voices, using the trees and brush as cover. A distinct ringing began in Claire's ears. She shook her head trying to clear it, but it only got more incessant.

“Do you hear that?” she mouthed at Jamie, gesturing to her ears.

He shook his head, confused. “Hear what?” he mouthed back.

“ _You are mistaken_ , mon cher!  _You have warped what it is we can do. It is a gift, not this!_ ” came what turned out to be Raymond's voice, almost pleading with the woman now.

Claire crouched, taking cover behind a bush (ignoring the ringing as best she could), Jamie pressing his shoulder to a tree, both shocked at what they saw from their vantage point.

Murchison lay bloodied and unmoving by the woman’s feet, an odd looking old fashioned pistol in her hand. Raymond stood a couple of metres away, hands held up in front of him. And beyond them, a group of monolithic standing stones, the tips of which were lost in the trees low canopy.

“I have journeyed far beyond yer imagining,  _Maitre_! I have done what ye’ve been afraid to,” the fiery redheaded woman - whose accent was distinctly Scottish - jeered, pointing her pistol at Raymond.

Jamie quietly cocked his gun and Claire nodded, taking his meaning. They weren’t standing on ceremony any longer. They rushed into the clearing, shoulder to shoulder, taking Raymond and woman by surprise. Jamie trained his gun on Raymond, Claire on the woman.

“And who the fuck are you two?” the woman snapped at them, pulling out another handgun from her belt, aiming one gun at each of them.

“Special Agent Claire Beauchamp,” Claire replied promptly, “This is Detective James Fraser. And you’re both under arre-!”

“I bloody well think not!” the woman interrupted, and all hell broke loose as she aimed her pistol at Claire and fired. Gunfire erupted all around, the muzzle pops illuminating the clearing in brilliant flashes. Jamie roughly shoulder bumped Claire to the ground. As she fell she saw out the corner of her eye a fine mist of red, and heard a sharp cry of pain. She hit the ground heavily, but managed to get off a few rounds in the woman’s direction just as the redhead ran towards the stones, throwing herself against them.

The buzzing in Claire’s ears had become positively deafening. She got to her feet, ready to chase down the woman, but realized Jamie too had been floored, his gun lying several feet away from him. Her vision swam then, a piercing pain went through her mind, making her throw her head back and shutting her eyes against it, a sob escaping her.

“Jamie!” she called, blindly reaching for him. He grabbed her hand, his own warm and sticky. She managed to look down and saw his fingers were coated in blood and so was his right shoulder.

“Go! Go after her! I’m fine,” he said, but she could hear the pain in his voice, and hesitated. Seeing this, Jamie let go of her hand and pushed the back of her legs towards the stones, urging her to go on. She came to a decision and ignoring his pleas, half knelt beside him, checking his shoulder. Raymond suddenly stood between her and the stones.

“Madonna,” he said reverently, much to Claire’s surprise, “you cannot follow her, for she has gone beyond your reach. For now. But, I...  _I_  can.”

Claire raised her gun, pointing it straight at Raymond’s chest, her left hand still pressing hard at Jamie’s gushing wound. “Move, or so help me-”

“You will not shoot me. You cannot. Tend to your red man, madonna, we will see each other again.” and as he said it, the effect was immediate, Claire felt it to be true. There was something gentle and earnest about him. She couldn’t quite place it - perhaps it was the look in his eyes or his demeanor - but she knew he wasn't malevolent. He slowly backed away to the stones.

“Shoot him!” Jamie yelled desperately.

“The body of the young girl you seek lies two miles that way,” Raymond gestured back the way they came. Inching evermore backwards.

“Sassenach, please,” Jamie pleaded, he'd slumped to his side, strength failing him.

“I won't leave you, not like this!” Claire replied, setting her gun down and using both hands to apply pressure to his wound. He groaned and pressed his forehead to her thigh. Her fingers moved from his wound and found purchase in the short hair at the back of his neck, pressing him tighter to her. She turned back to Raymond then and asked fiercely, “did you kill the girl?”

“Not I! Nor was it Geillis, even though it was her intention to do so. She got her  _sacrifice_ one way or another,” he said with disgust, looking at Murchison's lifeless body. “But the young woman was marked for death the moment she stepped into the woods. Her fate could not be changed. I am sorry,” he said, voice full of compassion.

She believed him.

“Where did she go, your Geillis?”

“She was never one of mine,” Raymond said, his fingers a hair's breadth from the centre stone. “And not  _where_ , madonna, but  _when_ ,”  he added, giving her the most amphibious smile Claire'd ever seen just as his fingertips brushed against the stone. The inside of Claire’s head suddenly exploded in fire, the last thing she remembered hearing was the sound of Jamie's panicked voice screaming her name.

***

An unimaginable time later, Claire came to, the feel of gentle hands on her brow, the sound of flowing water and the chirping of early morning birds hitting her senses all at once. She kept her eyes closed as she took stock of her body, mentally making sure nothing felt out of place. There was a lightness to it she couldn’t account for though. As harrowing as her bones still remembered the incident at the stones to be, she felt now utterly safe and tethered. She cracked her eyes open a fraction.

“Sassenach?” Jamie asked softly, his fingers skimming her cheek. She opened her eyes a bit more, best she could, the light like a hot poker to them, and saw him looking down at her, his own eyes laced with worry and doubt. And a bone deep tiredness. Her head, she realized, was cradled in his lap. “Oh, taing Dhia!” he breathed with relief, seeing her stir, “yer finally awake.”

She tried to sit up, but her head swam, nausea threatening to double her over. “How long have I been out?” she asked groggily.

“All night,” he said, brushing her hair off her forehead.

She took in her surroundings. Jamie was leaning against a tree by a small brook they’d crossed the night before, his gun and their packs lying within arms reach of him. He’d moved them well away from the stone circle. The smell of antiseptic hit her nose and the memory of blood coated fingers brought her completely back to herself.

“Bloody hell, you're hurt!” she exclaimed remembering. She got up on her knees feeling as though her head weigh twice as much as normal, and immediately started pulling at the hem of his shirt.

“Aye, I've cleaned and bound it best I could. Thought I'd be attracting any number of wild animals to us though for a while there,” he peered at his shoulder dispassionately, “it's stopped bleeding now.”

He let Claire carefully pull his shirt half off him and peel the crusty bandage away, exposing his injury to the morning light. “Christ, it went right through,” she said, brow furrowed. She could tell by the streaks of dried blood that ran down his chest and back that he'd bled for a good long while before he'd managed to staunch it. Her mind immediately snapped into autopilot doctor mode, her muscle memory taking over. She reached for her pack and pulled out the medical supplies she'd packed and began cleaning the wound.

“I used the satellite phone to call Hodgepile for help,” he said, wincing as she pinched the skin around the wound. “I also GPS marked where Murchison and Malva's bodies are…” She looked up at him, he looked utterly dejected as he continued, “her throat was slashed. A bloodied knife was discarded next her. I bagged it. We may get lucky and get the bugger's prints off of it or some such.” He sighed and closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the tree. Every line of muscle in his body taut with tension and exhaustion. He hadn't slept all night. She couldn't help but cup his cheek in her palm, his head having lolled onto his shoulder.

“Jamie,” she called to him gently, his eyes unfocused, “did you experience any lightheadedness or lose consciousness last night? Or throw up?” He was frightfully pale.

“Nah, none of that, I couldna let myself blackout, not with ye unconscious, I couldna let anything happen to ye. I just felt a wee bit dizzy after I came back from finding Malva, is all. And thirsty,” he replied through cracked lips.

“How long did Hodgepile say before help got to us?”

“Hours, a day maybe. He's still tracking down the rescue helicopter.”

“You've lost a lot of blood and you’re going to pass out soon, I’m afraid,” she said, grabbing a bottle of water from her pack and tipping some into his mouth. “I need to know your blood type, Jamie. Do you know it? And any allergies to meds you may have.” He was quickly slumping onto his side. Whatever reserves of energy and sheer will he had stubbornly held onto all night for her sake, was rapidly draining away now. “Jesus, Jamie.”

She saw his eyes flutter and finally shut, the breath of a “B” on his lips before he was limp in her arms.

***


	8. Chapter 8

## Chapter 8.

 

 Jamie woke to the sound of an incessant beeping, the smell of disinfectant and the feel of a warm, solid hand fiercely clutching his own. He knew exactly where he was before opening his eyes.

“Sassenach?” he mumbled and felt the hand holding his tighten.

“I’m here,” she replied, not bothering to mask the worry lacing her voice. He felt her hand brush against his forehead. “You had me worried there for a minute, detective,” she gently chided.

Jamie opened his eyes and was never more glad that he did than in that moment. She was sitting beside him - utterly disheveled and utterly beautiful. He smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Claire whispered back, smiling in return. They watched each other for a long while, the quiet beep of his heart monitor the only sound echoing around them. After a little while, he tried to sit up and saw alarm flash across her face.

“Whoa, not so fast! You’ve lost a lot of blood,” she told him, pushing him back down. “The gunshot wound itself wasn’t so bad, I sorted that out on the mountain, it was the exertions you put your body through after you were shot. Whatever you did, you caused your heart to pump at an alarming rate, which in turn made you lose far more blood than necessary.”

“Aye, well, I had to get ye away from that wretched circle. Once I got ye safely away and by a fire, I couldna sit still, I tried everything to wake ye, but…” he swallowed trying to shake off the fear and helplessness he’d felt. “So, after getting the fire going, I searched for Malva’s body. It didna take long to find. And once I’d marked the area on the GPS, I ran back to ye,” he finished quietly.

“Yup, that would do it,” she said, trying to ignore the earnest emotion he’d spoken about her with. She couldn’t though.

Jamie could feel the tension building between them and before things got uncomfortable, he turned to look at the IV currently pumping saline into his arm and flicked the tube, “is all this really necessary?” he asked, bothered they were making such a fuss over him.

“Yes, it is,” she replied, firmly.

“I feel fine, though, I really don’t need-”

“James Fraser,” Claire interrupted sternly, “listen very carefully, I shall say this only  _once_ ,” fixing him with an unwavering look, and saw his mouth twitch, “you may be a strong lad, but you need to let your body rest before it’s able to catch up to your mind. You were in and out of consciousness for hours, you were barely responsive by the time we got you on the helicopter last night, so you will let the medicine and saline run its course without a fuss or so help me-” she gave his arm a gentle shake. “I was scared for you,” she finished quietly, not meeting his eye.

His good hand floated up of its own volition and stroked her cheek with a feather light touch. Her eyes at once shut at his touch. “As I was for you,” he said, barely audible over the heart monitor. He let his hand drop away reluctantly.

They exchanged a long look. A look that said far more than either was willing to ever voice out loud. Not yet.

The electric spell sparking between them was broken when a nurse walked in with a tray of fresh bandages, a bag of saline and his medication.

“Good morning,” she said chirpily, moving to the opposite wall counter and began prepping the saline.

“Good  _moaning_ ,” Jamie cheekily whispered, just loud enough for Claire to hear and she nudged his hip, barely containing her laughter.  _So he did catch her reference then_ , she thought with a smile.

After the nurse had injected a cocktail of pain medication and antibiotics into the saline, Claire got up and took the tray from her, “I can do that,” she said kindly. The nurse nodded and left her to it. Claire changed the bag and his bandages, cleaning the wound gently and noted the healthy color his skin had regained.

“How long do I have to be here?” he asked, fidgeting as she did so.

“God, you’re stubborn,” Claire said, amused. “Not long. At least a few more hours, till you’re done with a couple more rounds of fluids. But I really would advise you to stay longer, just till we’re sure there isn’t an infection.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’ll be with my doctor every step of the way then, aye?” She clicked her tongue at that, but knew all too well the seriousness in his eyes. “I canna just lie here while the case it still open. While Malva’s murderer is still out there. I  _need_ to be out there with you, working this, not just uselessly lying here. Not after seeing her…”

“I know.” And she did know. Even though they’d found an ease between them, a humor that’d developed naturally, with neither consciously aware of it happening, they were still both hyper cognizant of the dire circumstances that had brought them together. There was no escaping that fact. But in a way, it was that very fact that made them seek out even a modicum of joy in a perpetually maddening world.

“I’ve taken over primary control of the investigation, Hodgepile more than willing to hand everything over to us. The bodies are being transferred to the morgue as we speak. I’ll be performing the autopsies on Malva and Murchison myself,” seeing the look on his face she answered his silent question, “I’m a trained pathologist as well as an MD. I also have a team of techs on their way to pick up Malva’s computer and run the prints on the murder weapon. I just wanted to make sure you were alright before heading to the morgue.”

“And you, Sassenach,” he asked, taking her hand, “are ye alright?”

“I will be.”

***

Claire had just finished up with her last autopsy when Jamie stuck his head round the door.

“You done, Sassenach?” he asked.

“Wha-?” she turned hastily from her work table to see him standing before her, arm in a sling with a crisp white dress shirt on, black dress pants and his black skinny tie askew, glasses hooked in his shirt. His damp hair was tied up in a messy bun that only he could pull off, she thought involuntarily. He’d gone back to the motel to shower and change. “Why are you even out of the hospital so soo— Oh, nevermind! Yeah, just finished. What’s up?”

Jamie stood a moment taking in the sight of her; in her sky blue scrubs and cap - her curls escaping it despite the tight bun she’d tried to knot beneath… She looked more like her true self in this place, in that outfit, than he’d ever seen her before, he thought. Even though they stood in a morgue, being a healer was what she was meant to do. He shook the thought away and moved into the room, handing her the folder he’d been holding.

“The prints on the knife had been mostly wiped off, but we managed to pull a partial off it. The results just came back. To Allan Christie,” Jamie said, and she could feel the revulsion rolling off his body as he said it. “He got busted for drunk driving down in Wilmington a year ago, spent the night in a cell. He’s prints were on file. He’s in holding now, but I requested they didn’t tell him why just yet, only that we had some follow up questions to ask.”

“And his father?”

“We brought him in too, but he doesn’t know why either. And you? Did the autopsies reveal anything we could use before we question Allan?”

She pulled her cap off, her hair spilling over her shoulders. “Quite a bit actually. Murchison’s was pretty straight forward. He died of a single gunshot wound to the heart. Only thing that stuck out was the bullet or rather ball I should say,” she pulled a small metal tray towards her, “it isn’t from any gun I recognize. I’m sending it off to ballistics for further analysis.”

“Looks like a ball you’d use in one of those 18th Century pistols,” Jamie mused. Claire nodded. “Strange weapon of choice.”

“I agree.”

“And… Malva?”

“Was pregnant.” Claire sighed sadly and sat down. Jamie following suit soon after. “She wasn’t more than four months along. Sending a sample off for DNA analysis. The striations of her neck wound matched those of the knife found at the scene. It’s no doubt the murder weapon.”

“So the wee bastard did it, then,” Jamie said, his anger making him shoot to his feet and pace the room. “ _Why_?”

“I have my theories. None of them at all pleasant,” Claire replied, her own anger bubbling under the surface. “But we need to get into a room with him. We may have enough to book him, but we need to get something more concrete, other than anything that could be viewed as circumstantial.”

“Dinna fash, Beauchamp,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing reassuringly, “we won’t let that wee bugger get away with this.”

***

Allan Christie sat alone in a cold, metallic interrogation room. Claire, Jamie and Hodgepile stood on the other side of the two way mirror watching him irritably twitch his leg. His whole body radiated a nervous energy that was palpable even through the mirror.

Even though she’d been present at a few, Claire had never taken the lead in an interrogation before. The idea was daunting and the fear of messing it up was steadily rising within her. But as Jamie stepped up to her shoulder, blocking Hodgepile from view, she felt his index finger curl round her pinky finger.

“ _Whenever you’re ready_ ,” he said in French, not wanting Hodgepile to catch on to her brief moment of nerves. She took a steadying breath and nodded. Jamie gestured to the door with the folders he held in his other hand and said - switching back to English - “After you.”

***

_Washington, DC._

 

“He confessed. Given the evidence we had, it didn’t take much for him to admit to what he’d done,” Claire said in a businesslike manner, as she recounted the events of their interrogation of Allan Christie to Director Campbell. “The young man had had an obscenely unhealthy obsession with his sister. He believed he was the only one who truly loved her, believed he was the only one who knew how to take care of her after their mother had died - he was ten at the time, Malva only two - that he’d had the keeping of her ever since she was a little girl.” Claire vividly remembered the inevitable despair that grew within her as Allan Christie confirmed her worst fears.

“ _She was mine!_ ” Allan had screamed after they’d revealed his fingerprint had been found on the murder weapon. It seemed something he had been brimming to reveal. “ _When she’d gotten permission from our father to start her nursing courses, I knew I’d lose her eventually and I couldn’t let that happen!”_

“He had been using their camping trips to perpetuate a sexual relationship with her,” Claire continued as Campbell looked over the casefile. “The pregnancy came as shock to him.”

 _“I never thought of it. I should have, but I never did. She was always little Malva. It never occured to me she could - that she would… I just never thought…”_  He had looked shell shocked as he spoke and Claire felt Jamie seething beside her. Her own revulsion barely contained.

“According to Allan, it was Malva’s idea to try and ensnare one of the local men into thinking the baby was theirs. He went along with the plan because he thought that it would keep her in Tryon’s Ridge. This would account for her change in behavior in the months leading up to her death. But as Malva continued her illicit affairs, Allan became increasing jealous and volatile.”

“ _Why kill her? What made you do that?_ ” Jamie had asked him.

“ _I had to_ ,” he’d replied, almost pleading with them to understand. “ _I searched her computer and found her plans to meet someone in the woods. When I confronted her, she refused to tell me who. Only that she’d finally found an escape. Away from Tryon’s Ridge. Away from me._ ” He had began to cry then, but found no sympathy.

“He had convinced his father that they should accompany Malva, make it a family trip in hopes it would thwart her plans of escape. But the night before they were to leave, both he and his father had fallen sick. Malva had spiked their meal with something that was meant to make them violently ill, giving herself a chance to get away and meet this mystery person. But Allan had managed to shake off whatever she’d given them.”

“ _I caught up with her and we argued. It happened so fast… One minute I had a hold of her, the next she was on the ground bleeding. I don’t even remember pulling the knife out.”_  He’d stared at his hands as if baffled by what they’d done.

Claire took in a deep breath. “The DNA results of Malva’s baby are still pending, but I have no doubt that it’ll confirm Allan as the father,” she finished.

Campbell looked up, a frown between his brows. “And Tom Christie?”

“Allan claimed his father had no idea what was happening between him and Malva, and given the devastated breakdown Tom Christie had when he learned of what his son had done, I believe it.”

Campbell closed the casefile and sat back, regarding her carefully. “You did great work here, agent Beauchamp.”

“Thank you, sir. But I couldn’t have done it alone. Detective Fraser was invaluable to this case,” Claire replied honestly.

“Speaking of the detective,” Campbell said, finally getting to the real point of their meeting. Claire knew from the beginning, he didn’t really need her to review the case for him in person. “Do you still believe his case was ever linked to this one?”

“I do,” Claire said, keeping tight rein on her composure. “In the course of investigating the girl’s disappearance, we came across not only the suspect detective Fraser has been hunting for, but a second suspect as well. One that we believe is responsible for Sheriff Murchison’s death. The two cases were irrevocably linked.”

“And… How would you classify Fraser’s performance?”

 _Ah_ , Claire thought,  _there it is_. “Professional, objective and efficient. He has a sharp mind for things and is extremely reliable.”

“You trusted him?”

“With my life.”

“I see you’ve requested to keep working with him on this,” Campbell said, flipping open another folder beside him.

“The death of Sheriff Murchison changes the landscape of Fraser’s investigation. We aren’t just dealing with missing women anymore, but a cop killer on US soil. The techs are going over Malva’s computer as we speak, to glean any clues they can of the mysterious “ _GD_ ” Malva was communicating with. They believe they may be able to track down her IP address, at the very least,” Claire said cooly.

Campbell regarded her for a long time before speaking again and she hoped her professional facade was all he saw. In truth, aside from getting to the bottom of what was going on, Claire wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Jamie just yet.

“You can see why I hold strong reservations toward the detective. His account of what happened on that mountain… 18th Century pistols, blood sacrifices, people disappearing into thin air, I mean…” he gestured at the open folder with distaste.

Claire had known what it said. Had told Jamie it wouldn’t be received well, but the stubborn Scot had insisted on writing the truth as he’d witnessed it. But for the sake of any future partnership, she had to tell Campbell something he’d be able to wrap his mind around.

“Detective Fraser had been shot and was losing a lot of blood during the confrontation on the mountain. Dark as it was, they very well could have seemed to disappear into thin air beyond our vantage point. And it doesn’t matter what the detective believes, Director, whoever was up on that mountain that night did believe in what they were doing. Blood sacrifices and all.”

Campbell nodded, considering her words carefully. “I’m inclined to decline your request, but you’re right, the Sheriff’s death changes things.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk, giving her a stern look. “Your request is granted. But keep me abreast of your progress.”

Claire barely contained her relief and delight. “Thank you, sir,” she said and hastily got up to leave before he changed his mind. But as she got to the door, he called to her.

“Oh, and agent Beauchamp. You’re on shaky ground with this. Careful you don’t slip.”

***


	9. Chapter 9

## Chapter 9.

 Claire walked back into the bullpen to see Jamie sitting on the edge of her desk, hands in his pockets, chatting genially with Joe Abernathy.

“Alright, Sassenach?” Jamie asked as she got level with them.

“Campbell approved the request,” she said, not bothering to stop the smile on her face from blooming. “Guess you’re stuck with me a while longer.”

“Och! Think I’ll survive,” Jamie replied, his own smile unencumbered.

Joe, who’d been quietly standing beside them grinning, watched as a silent conversation ensued between the two. He’d known Claire for years and never once had he ever seen her so… at ease and open with anyone else. Even he, who’d had a close relationship with her, had never seen this side to her before. He cleared his throat, bringing them back to their surroundings.

“So, where you staying?” he asked Jamie, who shrugged.

“I hadna time to check in anywhere when I first arrived. We’d left straight for Tryon’s Ridge,” Jamie replied, gesturing to Claire. “Suppose that will be my task for the evening.”

“Did you get a hold of Commissioner Grey, yet?” Claire asked him. He’d been meant to report in while Claire spoke with the Director.

“No yet, was waitin’ on ye, to see if we’d be given permission to continue working together first,” Jamie said, giving her a shoulder bump, but catching Joe’s knowing look, hastily added, slowly backing away toward the exit, “but I really should get a hold of him before it gets too late in London.”

“So…” Joe said once Jamie was out of earshot, leaning back against her desk and regarding her with a gimlet eye, “we’re already on to endearments, are we?” he teased.

Claire’s head snapped up.”What? No, we’re not!” surprise and confusion blooming on her face, making him laugh.

“ _Sasssenak_!” he drawled out in a horrible imitation of Jamie’s accent. “It’s cute.”

“No, that’s,” she spurted out, going beet red, “that’s not what - that’s just an inside joke, is all. Both of us being from the UK and all that.” She could see he wasn’t at all convinced - his smirk growing bigger.

“ _Sure_ , LJ. Gotta love those ‘inside jokes’.”

“Shut it,” she said with a laugh.

A call for Joe came in and with a hasty goodbye he was gone, leaving Claire staring blanking at her desk. She hadn’t even noticed Jamie had called her that. It’d become such an instinctive sort of thing for him to say - for her to hear - that it never registered as something possibly atypical to anyone else’s ears. They’d been through a fair bit in the short time they’d known each other, Claire thought, that it was only natural a certain level of informal familiarity grew between them. A friendship. An affection. She couldn’t quite pinpoint  _when_ it had happened, but now felt like it had just always been there, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

***

Jamie had just finished his call with Commissioner Grey when he saw Claire walking down the hallway with two coffees in hand. He tipped it to her in thanks when she handed it to me and took a sip.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said by way of greeting. “After you find a place to stay, if you’d like a proper meal and none of that greasy, fried rubbish you’ve been having since getting here?’

“Aye, I’d be up for that,” he replied as they made their way back to the bullpen. “Have any recommendations I can check out?”

“Yes. My place.”

He choked and coughed, trying to clear the feel of the hot coffee that had rushed up his nose at her words. “Oh, aye?” he said cheekily, making her pinch his arm.

“I’m offering you a nice, healthy home cooked meal, you numpty,” Claire said, grinning. “We could go over the files on ‘ _GD_ ’ the tech guys have uncovered so far.”

“Geillis,” Jamie said, “that’s what Raymond called her.”

“We can’t yet be sure GD and Geillis are the same person.  _But_ for the sake of argument,” she added, seeing him about to do just that, “let’s assume for now they are, in fact, one in the same, we need to figure out how to prove they are, beyond just Raymond’s word.”

“Aye, as ye say. So what time would ye like me to come over?” he asked, switching back to the more pressing topic on his mind.

“Soon as you’ve found a place to settle and drop your stuff off, you can head over. There’s plenty of inns and hotels I can recommend if you’d like?”

At his nod and thanks, she wrote out a list of possible places for him to stay, along with her address, and left him to it as she went for a much needed grocery run.

***

6:30pm on the dot, Claire heard a light knock on her front door. Before she could stop it, her stomach did an involuntary backflip at the sound.

 _Stop it_ , she chided herself, as she quickly made her way out of the kitchen.  _He’s here for work!_

But all thoughts of said work rushed out of her mind when she opened the door to find a casually dressed Jamie - his box of casefiles in hand - in loose jeans, open checked shirt and light blue tee. His hair open for a change, his rich, auburn curls falling over his forehead. A smile tugged at the corner of his lip as he took in her, which she already knew was a bit of a mess.

She’d gotten home in a flurry, dumping the box of files she’d gotten from the tech guys on her coffee table and groceries in the kitchen before changing into her favorite a-line skirt she loved wearing round the apartment and a loose gray v-neck shirt, her hair roughly thrown up into her usual messy bun. Comfortable enough to know that she could look her true self around him and not worry about having to dress up. It wasn’t that kind of night, after all, she told herself.

“No need to stand on ceremony,” she said, seeing him rooted to the spot and gestured him inside.

He walked in slowly, taking a moment to look around, taking in her space. A glimpse into who she was outside of work. A bookshelf lined the entirety of one wall; a mix of medical journals and classic fiction. A small tv sat in the corner of the room, not something she used a lot of it seemed. The sofa looked plump and comfy, a coffee table at its foot - where he put his box down next to hers. A hallway to his right led to three rooms. To his left was the open kitchen. He could feel all at once a current of life lived around him; her laughter and curiosity, her sadness and frustrations. It all pulsed vibrantly, uniquely of  _her_.

“Something smells amazing,” he said earnestly, turning back to her.

She let out a nervous laugh and said self-deprecatingly, “well, I don’t claim to be a great cook. Frankly, I can be a right disaster in the kitchen! But I do know my way around grilled steak and roasted vegetables well enough.”

They moved into the kitchen, Jamie immediately picking up a knife and began helping chop up what Claire had been in the middle of doing when he arrived. She’d gone to check on the steaks she’d left to marinate for a bit. They worked companionably, unconsciously falling into a familiar rhythm. Once everything was finally set to cook, they moved back to the living room and began going through the  _GD_ files.

“According to this,” Jamie said, frowning at the document in his hand, “ _GD_ aka Geillis’ IP address jumped around, messages received by Malva were never from the same place for too long.”

“Yeah, tech is still going through the messages, trying to pinpoint the origin of Geillis’ first message, as we speak,” Claire replied, going through missives trying to glean any clue to Geillis’ plan.

“London, New York, Atlanta, Wilmington…  _Ocracoke_? Where the fuck is that?” he asked looking up at Claire with that frown behind his glasses she had grown so fond of.

“An island off the coast of North Carolina, I think,” she said, pulling out her phone and double checking with Google maps. “Yup. It’s apparently believed to be the burial place of the pirate Blackbeard, of all things.”

“What on earth would she be doing there?”

Something stirred in Claire’s memory and she rifled through the papers she’d been going through, coming out with part of a chat she’d just skimmed over.

“Here! Geillis tells Malva of a coming together of like minded ‘herbalists’ to take place in Ocracoke on August 1st and that she would be delighted if Malva would want to join.” She looked at Jamie who looked to be in deep thought.

“August 1st, ye say?” She nodded. He rummaged through his box and came up with a tattered looking paper with some kind of timeline on it. “Jesus,” he murmured. “Lughnasadh.”

“Lughnasadh?”

“It’s one of the fire festivals. Falls right on August 1st!”

“But that’s still about three months away. Why would Geillis even tell Malva about it, if what Raymond said was true and her intention was to kill Malva anyway?”

Before they could debate the topic further, the oven bell tinged, drawing their attention back to the kitchen.

***

They plated up their dinner and moved back to the living room and sitting on the floor, shifted the files off the coffee table giving themselves room. Shelving the topic of work for the time being, they ate and drank in comfortable ease, sharing silly anecdotes about their lives. Conversation came effortlessly, flowing as freely as the six pack and over half a bottle of whiskey they managed to crush between them. The longer the night went, they settled back into the sofa, plates empty and the more personal the conversations became. They talked about their families, their childhoods. They’d both lost parents at a young age, they’d both deviated from a professional life they seemed destined for into unexpected fields and when the inevitable topic of significant others loomed in the shadows of their conversations, Jamie found himself inexplicably drawn to it. He’d managed to create an entire world of her as he wished. Yet nothing he’d come up with ever compared to the reality before him. She always found new ways to surprise him. He’d felt the question build within him before, but could never find an opening to ask her, afraid as he was of scaring her off with his forwardness - more afraid of what the answer would be, if he was being honest. But they had been through so much already and whether he liked the answer or not, he simply had to know.

Noticing they were out of beer, Claire asked, “I have a bottle of rhenish a colleague of mine brought from Germany. It’s rather stronger than normal rhenish so I’ve only had a glass or two, sparingly. Would you like a glass? It’s very good.”

“Aye, why not,” he said, clearing his throat and gathering what courage he had as she got up a pulled out the bottle and a couple of glasses out from a side cupboard. “I… Dinna mean to pry, Sassenach,” he began, “that is, I dinna mean to sound as if I’m overstepping or anything-”

“Out with it, Fraser,” she said, sinking back down beside him on the sofa.

He smiled, feeling utterly foolish at being so flustered. “Do ye have someone? In yer life, I mean… romantically?”

“With what time?” she laughed softly. “Between med school, Quantico, and work, it’s just not been a priority. It’s never been something I’ve actively missed or even thought about, really.”

He let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding, his smile getting broader. She handed him the glasses so she could open the bottle. He could see her thinking and knew she was battling with the same nerves he’d just gone through.

“And you, Fraser? Have you a bonny lass waiting for you back home?” she finally asked, not meeting his eye.

“With what time,” he echoed, cocking an eyebrow at her when she looked up at him. “As you said, with one thing or another, it hasn’t really been on my radar.”

An electric silence simmered between them. Claire could see a smile hidden in his eyes as his gaze sharpened, and knew from the way his eyes flicked to her lips, her own reflected the same. Whether it had or hadn’t been on his radar before, something was shifting between them, moulding and reshaping. Her fingers unconsciously worked the cork from the bottle, her eyes unable to pull away from his. The cork came free with a light  _pop_ and she poured them out a little.

“Slainte,” Jamie said over the rim of his glass, that sent a shiver down Claire’s spine.

“Cheers,” she returned, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks.

Between the alcohol and being so engrossed in the moment, Claire’s spacial awareness wasn’t all the great and as she tried to chuck the cork onto the table beside where she’d put the bottle, she missed it by a good mile, sending the cork rolling under the table. Laughing, Jamie reached down to retrieve it as Claire mumbled to leave it as she too went to reach for it. It always came to a surprise to Claire just how big he was, especially when forced into tight spaces and as the two of them ungainly dove under the tiny coffee table for the cork, it came as no shock when he slammed the top of his head with the underside of the table, sending everything into the air and unceremoniously back down again in the ensuing confusion.

“Ow,  _ifrinn_! Jesus,” he exclaimed, rubbing the crown of his head.

“Shit, sorry! Are you alright?” Claire asked, warring between anxiousness and laughter, the earlier spell between them broken as she quickly righted the bottle of rhenish.

“Dammit! Aye, I am. It’s nay bother,” he said, grimacing back into the sofa, “my sister Jenny swears my heid’s harder than an iron pot.”

“Here,” Claire said, sitting beside him and motioning him to bend over, laughter finally winning out, “let me see.” He obligingly presented his head for inspection, a small bump  _just_ discernible beneath his thick hair. “Well, you’re not broken, so I think you may just live,” she said judiciously, and without thinking she leaned forward and kissed the bump gently. He lifted his head, eyes wide with surprise. “Better?”

“Lots,” he replied, himself taken with the fizzing laughter that had infected her.

As the laughter died down though, Claire realized she hadn’t let go of him, her hands having come from the top of his head to cup his cheeks quite automatically, her fingertips that’d itched for so long to run along his stubble, now enjoying the tingling feel of the scruff beneath them. As she realized that, she also realized the unmasked hunger in his eyes, neither of them denying - how just within a few touches - the kindling between them had finally been ignited.

After what felt like an eternity, Jamie leaned forward, brushing his lips lightly against hers, testing to see her reaction. He felt her breath hitch at the contact but she didn’t pull away. He smiled and gently fit his mouth properly to hers. His gentleness however, was by no means tentative, but rather a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. _I am yours_ , it said.  _And if you’ll have me, then_ …

She would. She leaned back into the sofa, pulling him with her, her mouth opening to his, accepting both promise and challenge.

Neither could have said later how long they’d stayed in each other’s arms, tongues languidly exploring, hands buried deep in one another’s hair, fingers taking in the shape of skull and jaw, flare of shoulder blade and every bump of rib. Every part of them from tout muscle to exhale of breath, seamlessly fitting together. Their hands began roaming more freely, Claire’s finding purchase in his back pocket, squeezing lightly, while Jamie’s found the hem of her shirt.

But what semblance of coherent thought Claire had left pulled her back to the surface of consciousness just as Jamie’s thumb brushed against the underside of her breast. “Jamie,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Huh?” he managed to get out as his lips made their way just below her ear, making her moan.

She grabbed either side of his face then and brought him to meet her eye. His own clouded heavily with desire and drink. Both were breathing heavy. She shook her head.

“I want you,” she said, nipping his bottom lip.

“I want ye too,” he said, eyes shutting as her nails grazed his skull.

“But not like this,” she said, and his eyes at once sharpened, confused. “Not with us drunk off our asses. I want to be able to remember every touch, every kiss, every time you run your tongue along my lip.” She licked her lips at the memory. “And every single time your body moves with mine. The entire feel of you. I want to remember it all. And I’m afraid I -  _we_ \- won’t, like this,” she finished, running her finger softly over his bottom lip.

He let out a shaky laugh as he lowered his forward to hers. His entire body reverberating with need and restraint. “Jesus, woman… Do you not ken how much more that makes me want ye,” he said, voice deep and husky.

They lay unmoving for a while longer, letting the adrenaline coursing through them ebb away and the ringing in their ears quieten, before reluctantly coming apart.

“I should go,” Jamie said, making to get up.

“No!” Claire immediately replied. “Listen, you’re far too drunk to go roaming the streets of an unknown city this late at night,” she said, knowing full well he could’ve just taken a taxi, but ignored that fact. “The sofa is yours. Just… you don’t have to leave,” she finished lamely.

“Yer sure?” he asked, himself unsure whether he could keep his hands to himself. He took her hand in his, threading his fingers with hers.

“Yes,” she replied.

She was sure. Even though she didn’t want their first time to be some drunken tryst, she was still loathe to be parted from him. She went to get him a blanket and pillow, stumbling into the wall at one point. He was standing waiting for her when she returned and as she handed him the blanket, his hand drifted past the blanket, grazing the back of her hand as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him, bringing her flush against him. The blanket fell to the floor.

She was breathless and rather dizzy when she finally pulled back from his kiss, the heat of him utterly intoxicating.

“We have time, I promise,” she whispered against his lips. “I want to do this - what it is between us - properly.”

Her took her face in his hands then, his gaze holding hers. “So do I,” he promised, sealing it with a kiss.

As Claire shut the door to her bedroom and leaned back against it, her entire body thrumming like plucked guitar strings, she later came to regret not taking Jamie to bed that night, for it was a long time before they again found themselves in each other’s embrace once more.

***


	10. Chapter 10

##  ****Chapter 10.

 “Inverness,” Geordie repeated for the umpteenth time. He'd called Claire first thing in the morning to inform her his team of techs had finally tracked down the first IP address Geillis’ messages originated from. She'd rushed from her bedroom, ignoring the incessant pounding in her head and woke Jamie up from a deep sleep. An hour later they were showered and changed and standing at Geordie's desk.

“Inverness,  _Scotland_? Yer sure?” Jamie asked again.

“Yes. A…” Geordie double checked the address on his screen, “Mrs. Baird’s bed and breakfast, to be exact.”

Claire looked at Jamie remembering the night on the mountain. The woman had sounded Scottish which had struck them both as odd.

A Frenchman and a Scot on a North Carolina mountain, walked into a stone circle… Sounded like the beginning of a really bad joke, she thought.

“She also popped up as you know, in London, Boston, Ocracoke and Tryon's Ridge. We haven't caught anything on CCTV yet matching your description of the suspect, but we hope the BOLO you put out will have more luck,” Geordie said, swaying his swivel chair from side to side. “The froggy little man though,” he continued, clicking away at his keyboard, bringing up a grainy picture that could be no one but Raymond, “was spotted in Boston around the same time we pinged  _GD_ being there too.” Both Claire and Jamie leaned in to get a better look.

“Where exactly was this?” Claire asked.

“CCTV caught him outside the Boston Public Library.”

Claire’s stomach dropped. Two bloody leads on two different bloody continents. Which only meant one bloody thing.

_Divide and bloody conquer_.

***

Jamie left for London (then onwards to Inverness) early that evening. Claire leaving for Boston the morning after. It was imperative they chased down every lead they could and even though these were months old, it was even more critical they worked them as fast as they could before memories faded completely. Their professional minds knew this, but their hearts absolutely dreaded the inevitable parting.

“ _I’ll call ye when I land_ ,” Jamie had said when she’d driven him to the airport. They had stood facing each other, neither one quite sure what to say. Things had been a whirlwind since they met, neither quite believing it had only been a little over a week. Jamie nervously shifted the strap of his bag on his shoulder, his box of casefiles feeling slightly more heavier than it had been when he first arrived.

“ _Why does it feel like time goes quicker between the two of us?_ ” Claire had asked with a shaky laugh, not quite meeting his eye.

He’d put his things down then and stepped closer to her, taking her hands in his. She slowly tilted her head up to meet his gaze. He gave her hands a squeeze.

“ _We have time, aye,_ ” he’d said adamantly, echoing her from the night before, and as she nodded, he had leaned down, tenderly fitting his lips to hers. She broke from the kiss reluctantly, her arms having moved of their own accord to lock around his neck in a tight hug. A hug that said  _this isn’t goodbye_ , a hug that promised they’d see each other again. They stood for a long time in each other’s embrace, but eventually, Jamie sighed, “ _I better get going_ ,” he’d said, grudgingly letting go of her and stepping back. “ _Be safe, agent Beauchamp_.”

“ _And you, too, Detective. You be careful._ ” He smiled that knee weakening smiling of his and was gone.

Claire spent the rest of that night and flight out to Boston replaying everything. She knew she needed to clear her head before she got on the ground and thoughts of Jamie threatened to consume her, so she let herself be consumed. If only for a few hours.

***

_Boston Central Public Library_

 

 Claire was greeted by the library’s administrator, Wallace Jackson, who she’d informed of her visit the moment she landed. He jabbered on about nothing in particular as he lead the way to the microfilm department. Geordie had managed to track down where Raymond had gone within the library, but not the why.

“Special Agent Claire Beauchamp, this is Millie Nelson, the microfilm department’s curator,” Jackson introduced. “She’ll be able to help you with whatever you need.” And with that, he politely excused himself and left them to it.

“About three months ago, this man,” Claire began, pulling out Raymond’s picture and handing it to Nelson, “visited your department. I was hoping you could tell me what it is he was researching?”

“Ah yes, I remember him. Not everyday a charmingly eccentric little Frenchman walks in here,” she added, reminiscently. “He chatted pleasantly for a little while, said he was a history professor here to give a guest lecture at Harvard, before requesting to see local Boston newspapers between 1968 to 1970.”

“Did he happen to say what exactly he was looking for?”

“No. But he did leave a letter, which I found quite odd,” Nelson added offhandedly.

“A letter?” Claire said, surprised.

“It’s around here somewhere. He said should a woman come looking for him, I was to give it to her.”

Claire found this bizarre to the extreme. “Did he describe the woman?”

Nelson shook her head.

“I’m going to need that letter and copies of every newspaper he looked at. Can you remember anything else about his visit?”

With another shake of her head, Nelson went in search of the letter and records. Half an hour later, Claire - letter and USB in hand - headed towards her motel. As much as she itched to open the letter right there in the car, she didn’t. She didn’t want to do it without Jamie.

***

_Bedford Motel, Boston_

 Claire sat cross-legged on her lumpy mattress, the glare of her laptop screen finally become too much. Rubbing her eyes, she leaned back into her pillows and stretched her legs out which popped and cracked at the exertion. She had spent hours going through the newspapers, split between her screen and her phone, her mind constantly wandering across the sea.

_Where are you, James Fraser_ , she found herself thinking for the umpteenth time as she waited for his call, knowing he had to have landed ages ago.

Raymond's letter sat beside her - unopened.

She’d been about to give up on the newspapers an hour earlier when something had caught her eye and stirred her memory to a throwaway comment Jamie had once made - “ _While researching the case of the 1968 missing Montauk Five, I found an old prospector’s map of this very mountain from 1756.”_  - that sent a jolt through her system. Raymond had been researching the Five as well, it seemed.

‘ _Robert Springer, leader of a radical fringe division of the activist group AIM - that are calling for the heritage and equal rights for the native American communities to be recognized by the government - and four other men wanted by Federal officials for a string of planned bombings, have gone missing after being let out on bail…’_ Claire read carefully.  _‘Some within the AIM have accused the government of having done away with the outspoken ‘Montauk Five’. Accusations the government has vehemently denied…’_

Claire had scrolled through the papers but there had been only one other mention of the Five that she could find.

_‘After extensive searches, the body of one the missing Montauk Five has been found in the woods in Vermont. No cause of death has been determined of the yet unidentified male and no traces of the other missing men has been found.’_

She was about to grab her phone and call Jamie herself when her screen came alive, his name blinking back at her.

“Finally,” she whispered as she answered it. “Jamie? Everything alright?”

“Hello?” he said, sounding tired and further away than Claire liked. “Aye, everything’s fine. Grey wanted to see me soon as I landed. I’ve only just gotten out of his office and about to catch a plane to Scotland. How’s everything on your end?”

“I found what Raymond was after in Boston,” she replied, relaying everything she’d discovered, which wasn’t much.

“There isna much in way of public record about them,” he said, “ _but_ while doing my research I discovered that a skull - with silver fillings - had been found near Tryon’s Ridge in the early 1800s.” He heard her snort on the other end, but powered on. “Dental records claimed it was that of Robert Springer, but was later debunked as a hoax. No one could quite reconcile how his skull could appear hundred years before his birth, so it was simply dismissed as a fake.”

“I would suspect so,” Claire replied sarcastically. “Has anyone tried running facial recognition or even DNA testing on the skull now?”

“No. The skull went missing in 1975. No one’s seen it since.”

“How fucking convenient.”

“Isn’t it, no?”

She let out a sigh, shutting her laptop and grabbed the letter. “I found something else.”

“Aye?”

“Raymond left a note for a woman. He asked the curator should a woman come looking after him, she should give the letter to her. I have it with me now. I haven’t opened it yet.”

There was a long pause before Jamie asked, “why haven’t ye opened it?”

“I was waiting for you,” she said simply.

“What does it say, Sassenach?” he asked tentatively.

She tucked her phone into the crook of her shoulder and neck while she ripped the envelope open and pulled out the note.

“Sassenach?” Jamie prompted as the silence grew from Claire’s end.

Claire stared at the note. And six words stared back, in neat, handwritten cursive script -  _Church of St. Finbar. Twelve o’clock._

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to give everyone a head’s up, 'Women of Balnain' will be taking a two week or so break, starting next week. I won’t be having much time to write, but hopefully will get back to it soon as I can next month.
> 
>  
> 
> Apologies and hugs in advance!


	11. Chapter 11

## Chapter 11

 

_Inverness, Scotland._

 

 Jamie landed in Inverness feeling frustrated and helpless. He couldn't talk Claire out of it, as much as he tried. He replayed their conversation a thousand times over and all it did was anger him further.

“ _It's a lead, Jamie,”_ she'd said stubbornly.

“ _I ken fine well what it is, Claire, I'm just asking ye to not go alone.”_

_“I'm perfectly capable-”_

_“This isna about yer capabilities! I ken ye are, I just dinna like the idea of ye possibly walking into an unknown situation with nay backup.”_

_“Jamie,”_ she’d said, her voice tight, but he could tell she was striving for patience, “ _whatever this is, it’s_ months _old. Chances are there won’t be anything_ to _find, but we have to run down any lead we get.”_

He knew she was right. He was doing the same, after all. He just loathed the thought of not being there to have her back. She had something far more tangible than he did, something he never had. Something directly from the Frog himself - and that scared him far more than he was willing to admit to himself.

He arrived at Mrs. Baird’s B&B, his mind less than focused to put it mildly, but he tried shrugging off thoughts of Claire as he dinged the little bell at the front desk. A little, middle aged woman came out a back room, greeting him with a pleasant smile and introduced herself as Mrs. Baird.

“What can I do for ye, lad?” she asked after he’d introduced himself.

He pulled out the composite sketch they’d had made of the woman on the mountain - Geillis - and handed it to her. “I’m looking for this woman and was wondering if she perchance stayed here a few months back?”

Mrs. Baird put on her specs and examined the sketch.

“Och, aye, she did,” she confirmed and pulled the B&B’s registry toward her. “Paid in cash for a full month. It isna standard practice anymore to accept cash only, but there wasna any harm to it.”

“What name did she give ye?”

“Duncan. Geillis Duncan.”

“What do ye remember about her? Did she say where she came from, where she was going? What she was doing in Inverness?”

“No, sorry. She didna say much of anything really. Kept to herself. All she did say was that it had been a very long time since she’d last been in Inverness. She was an odd sort. Always had a smile on like she kent more than everyone else. Like she could see through ye,” Mrs. Baird recounted with a frown.

Jamie had to consciously restrain himself from thumping the counter. His lead was turning out to be a whole lot of nothing, while Claire could quite possibly have to face the Frog on her own and there was nothing he could do to help. He forced himself to push through, he still needed to interview people in the village, someone may still know something they could use. He quickly checked himself into the B&B and went out exploring. He’d only ever been through Inverness as a lad when they’d come Munro bagging, he’d never really delved much into its history.

As he walked down the street, he couldn’t deny the place had an energy - like most of Scotland did - that felt ancient and powerful. He let his feet take him where they would, letting that energy guide him. He soon found himself down a narrow cobbled path, outside a charmingly old fashioned wee tea room - _The Hidden Druid_ the iron wrought hanging sign read. Without much thought, Jamie walked in.

The little bell above the door tinkled at his entrance, and Jamie was at once hit by a cacophony of sensations; the beautiful aroma of delicate teas and pastries filled his senses as the gentle warmth of a small fire crackled away in the corner, gave the room a cozy, homey feel. The tea room was empty but he didn’t feel alone. Everything seemed handmade, detail and attention taken lovingly with every piece of furniture and cutlery.

He hadn’t noticed the woman with her short, iron-gray perm and triple-stranded pearl choker, sitting behind the counter till she stood up, a warm and welcoming smile dawning on her face when she saw him. He opened his mouth, about to introduce himself, when she spoke.

“Took ye a while laddie,” she said, her voice thick and wizened. “Was starting to worry ye wouldna find yer way here.”

***

_Church of St. Finbar, Boston_

 

 Claire stood outside the church, taking in its beautiful, imposing facade. She’d stood there for ten minutes, waiting for the clock to strike midnight, it had been a long time since she’d been to church and standing there now, she felt an inexorable pull towards it - something calling to her.

The note had not specified whether midday or midnight, so she’d resolved to be there at both - much to Jamie’s irritation.

“ _For how long, Claire? Ye canna just-”_

 _“I can, if I must. I’ll speak with the priest first, see if he knows anything. It’ll be alright, Jamie,”_ she’d tried to reassure him, but judging from the huff she heard over the phone, he wasn’t all that thrilled with the idea. She couldn’t blame him. Under all that stubbornness, she could feel the worry and helplessness he felt being so far away. He’d been chasing Raymond for years, yet here _she_ was, walking into an unknown situation - as he felt it - because of him. But she couldn’t think about that now as the bell tolled midnight and she walked into the church.

Claire felt an immediate and comforting quiet engulf her as it always did when she entered a church, and at midnight there was yet something deeper about the silence. She scanned the dark room, three people were scattered throughout the pews, but she saw no sign of a priest. She made her way slowly down the aisle, crossing herself as she did so.

“There is something so…” a gravelly voice suddenly whispered from the shadows to her right that jolted her heart, halting her midstep and her finger reflexively clicked on the recorder she had in her coat pocket, “very _enchanting_ about old buildings, no? Something ancient that seeps into their very marrow.” As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw him sitting there at the far end of a pew, eyes fixed on the dais ahead, his hands clasped lightly in his lap. Raymond. He turned slowly to look at her and lifted an eyebrow at her quizzical and hesitant look. “You’ve been looking for me, madonna,” he spread his hands and answered her unspoken question, “So here I am.”

Claire watched him and felt about him the same as she did on the mountain. He wouldn't hurt her. She found it hard to believe he’d hurt anyone. She slid in beside him. He gave her a wide, toothless grin.

“You left that note three and a half months ago, how could you _possibly_ anticipate…”

“They speak, do they not?” he said reverently, as if he didn’t hear her. He reached a hand out, his fingertips grazing the rough wall beside him. “They move, too, but _very_ slowly. It takes millennia to move the slightest fraction of an inch. This one though… It has not lived as long as some.”

Claire wondered - as an icy chill shot up her spine - for the first time if Jamie really was right. That it had been madness coming here alone. That Raymond _was_ madness. But she couldn’t deny to herself what she’d felt and heard at the stones either. As her mind warred with itself, Raymond gave her a sidelong look.

“Where are you from, madonna?” he asked curiously.

“My father always claimed he’d found me under a cabbage leaf in the garden,” Claire replied sarcastically. It was true, he'd always said it, yet Claire wasn't about to divulge anything of real importance. Raymond laughed earnestly though.

“How delightful,” he chuckled. “Perhaps we all were… I see the battle within you, madonna,” he said more soberly, pulling her attention back to him. “Ask what you have been eager to ask.”

She took a deep breath, trying to marshall her thoughts into one cohesive thread. In the night’s quiet, it almost felt like they sat in a confessional booth, the church ensconcing them in the safety of semi-darkness. How to even start? The man had been more myth than reality up until this point. _What would Jamie ask?_ she thought with a snort.

“Did you take the girls?”

“It was not I,” he simply replied kindly.

“Then who did? And why?”

“Ah, but you have met her. Geillis. She did not always go by that name though. She was once Gillian Edgars. As to why,” he said, gesturing with his hands, palms up, “she has come to warp they very being of what we can do. Taken an elemental and ancient ability and perverted its essential nature.”

“And what is its ‘ _essential nature_ ’?”

Raymond was quiet for a moment, thinking. “What is the ultimate goal of an alchemist?” he asked seriously.

“To transform matter,” Claire replied automatically.

“Exactly!” Raymond exclaimed. “For those of us who hear the hum, those of us who can walk through the thinning veil of time, can and _will_ be altered. The journeys eventually chip away, degrade, leaving only the essence of a thing. _This_ is what counts and it is our responsibility to travel with care and true purpose, madonna, when everything is stripped away. Gillian believes she needs a human sacrifice, that it helps the traveler not only go through but also avoid these… alterations. And perhaps stretch the journey farther and farther each time. But alas, her experiments will come to naught, I’m afraid.”

Claire remained silent. Part of her mind screamed, _this is an absurd waste of time!_ yet another, deeper part of her whispered, _but you heard the buzzing too._ She couldn’t quite yet bring herself to reconcile either argument. But if she was to understand their way of thinking, she needed to find a common, logical thread within it all.

“Why can some travel and others can’t?” she asked, remembering Jamie being unable to hear the stones. She felt she already knew the answer though.

“Why do some have blue eyes or freckled skin. Why are some short yet others tower?” he confirmed her theory.

“Genetics…” she whispered. The little man gave her a broad, amphibian grin and nodded.

“But if she’s using these victims as sacrifices, why haven’t we found any of the bodies?”

Raymond looked down at his hands sadly. “Gillian chooses women that are all too willing to believe her stories of transforming their lives for the better. Sometimes, what Gillian doesn’t realize is some too can travel. Some go through and are lost to time. The others… I confess I have had a hand in disappearing the poor souls. It shames me deeply that I cannot get to Gillian in time to stop her, but the world cannot know what we can do. I cannot let attention be drawn to us.”

One of the parishioners got up and quietly walked down the aisle. Claire and Raymond waited till they were out of earshot, Claire taking the time to absorb all he said. She’d wanted answers, but these “answers” only made things far more complicated. These weren’t answers they could use.

“The Montauk Five,” she said suddenly and saw comprehension dawn on his face.

“I knew them. They, like Gillian, wanted to change things. They believed they simply were in the wrong _time_ to do so. I tried to help them. Warn them. But they did not listen and chose to travel anyway,” he said and let out a long wistful sigh. “Things did not go well for them.”

The church bell tolled one in the morning, Claire having not realized how fast their time had gone. Raymond stirred beside her. She couldn’t quite understand why she hadn’t just arrested him the moment she saw him, but something made her hesitate, even now as her fingers itched to go for her cuffs, it just didn’t feel _right_ to do so. As she debated with herself, Raymond reached into his jacket and pulled out a ragged, leather bound book.

“You have stumbled upon a very complex series of events,” he said, running his stubby fingers over the surface of the book. “There will come a time where you must choose. To believe and follow, or to believe and simply let go. The choice will be yours, madonna. I pray you do not take it lightly.” He handed her the book, but as she reached out for it, it slipped between their hands and fell to the floor.

As she swooped down to retrieved it, she asked, “What did Gillian want to change-” but as she spoke, she looked up to find Raymond gone, the empty space beside her seemingly stretching further into the darkness.

***


	12. Chapter 12

## Chapter 12.

 

 It was six in the morning and Jamie was sure he hadn’t slept a wink. He’d insisted Claire call him the moment she’d left the church. It had been a blessing and relief to finally see her name illuminate his phone’s screen just a little past six. She’d sent him the recording of her meeting with Raymond as she drove back to her motel. He’d listened to it three times before he could let it all sink in.

“And the book?” he asked once she’d gotten settled into bed and they’d switched to a video call.

“Looks a lot like a Grimoire,” Claire told him, taking quick pictures of it and sending them to him. “There’s just no making sense of the convoluted pages, really. They contain formulas about the ‘art and science of time travel’, but not like any formulas I’ve ever come across. She seems to have studied and prepared before her ‘journey’. According to this, her initial reason to travel was to change history. She seemed singularly obsessed with Scottish history - The ‘45 Rising, in particular.”

“‘Gillian Edgars’, Raymond said?” he asked, as she watched him jot the name down. “I’ll do some digging, see what I can come up with. Seems Gillian adopted the alias of a 16th Century Scottish witch with apparent miraculous healing abilities - Geillis Duncan.”

“Oh, how fitting,” Claire put in dubiously. “Sure she wasn’t really Geillis Duncan taking on the alias of Gillian Edgars?”

He snorted. “Ha bloody ha.”

“And you? Find anything in Inverness?”

“Apart from a odd old lady in a wee tea shop? No.”

“Odd how?” Claire asked, sinking deeper into her pillows, placing her laptop beside her.

He chuckled sheepishly, gathering his hair and tying a rough, loose bun. “Aye, well, I walked in and the first thing she says is she’s been waiting for me. That she’d been _dreaming_ of me.”

Claire snorted and he gave her a thoroughly unamused look. “James Fraser,” she said, barely keeping the bubbling laughter at bay, “have you been sending poor old ladies into a tizzy at the mere sight of you and your speechless _charrrms_ ,” she rolled her ‘R’s exaggerating his accent spot on. “Careful now detective, you never know which one’s going to have a dodgy ticker, wouldn’t want-”

“Stop, ye wee besom, it wasna like that!” he said, the laughter in his voice betraying the stern look on his beet red face. She gave him a teasing _sure it wasn’t_ nod, but he ignored her and went on, “She claimed she read tea leaves and palms and such,” he recounted.

“ _I’m Mrs. Graham. Ye dinna need to look so worried, laddie, I dinna bite,”_ she’d said with a smile as she gestured for him to come further into the tea shop. She went about making him a cup of tea as he sat down, introducing himself in the process. After a moment, she’d joined him at the little table, a tray with two cups of oolong and plate of biscuits in hand.

 _“I canna remember the last time I had a good cup of tea,”_ Jamie’d said, trying to make small talk. _“I dinna think I’ve had this afore,”_ he added taking in the scent of the tea.

“ _Aye, not many go for the oolong nowadays,”_ she’d said, placing the plate beside him. “ _It’s best for the readings though. Auld family tradition,”_ she’d added seeing his wry look.

 _It wouldn’t be the Highlands without a little captivating divination_ , Jamie had thought with a smile.

_“Drink up, laddie. And let’s see what we’ve got!”_

So he’d drunk up and handed her back his cup, curious. She took a moment, brow furrowed and she turned the cup this way and that.

“Well?” Claire interrupted him. “Are you going to meet a dark and mysterious fair maiden?” she asked, voice lofty. He smiled but ignored her and went on with his retelling.

 _“How strange,_ ” Mrs. Graham had mused, looking at his cup. “ _Everything’s… contradictory. Ye’ve been searching for somethin’, but what if I told ye, ye’ve already found what ye didna ken ye were lookin’ for in the first place?”_ she’d looked up at him, but didn’t give him a chance to reply, before going on. _“Yer journey will lead to answers, but not the kind that yer hoping for.”_ She’d put the cup down and clasped her hands together and watched him. “ _Give me yer hand, lad.”_ And before he could move, she’d taken his calloused hand and peered into his palm. “ _Most hands have a likeness to them. There are patterns. Your pattern however… is different. Unlike any I’ve seen before. Yer lifeline,_ ” she’d said, tracing it with her pinky, _“is strong, healthy, but broken too, entwined with another,”_ then she’d circled the fleshy mound at the base of his thumb, “ _yer Mount of Venus isna shaped like other lads. In most lads, it means he fancies the lassies a wee bit,_ ” she’d said, giving him a bawdy wink, making him blush (much to Claire’s amusement). “ _But yers… shows yer a patient man. One not at all too likely to stray from yer chosen lass… or her bed_.”

Why he’d chosen to tell Claire that part of the reading, he didn’t quite know, but powered on, not meeting her eye on the screen.

The more Mrs. Graham stared at his palm though, the darker her eyes became. “ _Yer like a cat, aye? A wee red cheatie…_ ” her voice had become distant, as if she spoke more to herself than to him. “ _Nine,_ ” she’d declared suddenly. “ _You have nine in your hand. And death. Ye’ll die nine times before you rest in your grave.”_

Jamie’s hand had twitched in hers. The urge to pull away strong. Her eyes snapped up to his, seeing his alarm. “ _Oh, dinna fash, lad! Sometimes dying doesna hurt, even though often than not, it does._ ” Jamie did pull his hand away then. Whatever her game had been, he was done playing.

“Jamie,” Claire said, pulling him out of the memory and back to her. She could see the woman’s words had bothered him, more than he was likely to admit. “You can’t take what some random stranger told you to heart. She doesn’t know you from Adam, and I‘d be willing to wager it isn’t the first time she’d given such a “reading”,” she tried to reassure him.

He shrugged, not quite convincingly. “Aye, well. After I pulled my hand away I asked her about Geillis. She said she hadn’t seen her, but had heard whispers there was a druid looking for fellows to perform with her come Samhain. But over time the practices had slowly died away and only a handful remain that performed such rituals, and none were willing to let in a stranger. She soon moved on,” he finished quietly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “She was right though. Everything we’ve found out doesna bring us any closer to catching Gillian Edgars.”

Claire tucked her head into the crooked of her elbow. “I don’t think that’s true. We know Gillian was interested in Ocracoke during Lughnasadh. And _your_ Mrs. Graham,” she teased, “confirmed she was looking into Samhain in Inverness.”

“She’s hardly mine, and she didna “confirm” anything,” Jamie put in primly. “She heard rumours. Besides, Lughnasadh is near two and half months away, Sassenach,” he added gloomily.

Claire had been trying not to think about that. If they couldn’t find anything immediate, it more than likely meant they wouldn’t get to see each other in person for months. And the prospect of that upset Claire more than she wanted to admit.

“Two and a half months we have to prepare,” she said, convincing no one, even to herself.

“Sassenach…”

“I know, Jamie. But there really isn’t anything we can do for now.”

He let out a long, resigned sigh. “I ken. I just hate it, aye.”

“You and me both, detective,” she said sincerely.

***

To say Claire and Jamie both yearned to be able to time travel in those ensuing months, would be an understatement. They both went back to work and were assigned different cases - their own having been left open ended till they could pick it up again. Everything around them seemed to have dulled, work felt perfunctory and habitual.

In their free time though, they’d spent video chatting. Sometimes about the case, but mostly they just talked about everything and nothing. They quite unconsciously learned each other’s habits and tics as they went about their lives, sometimes forgetting the other was an ocean away as their laptops practically streamed a constant live video feed. The five hour difference had been something that had been tricky to work around, but once they managed to naturally sync up their evening schedules, they carved out a fair amount of time together.

It had become Claire’s (and Jamie’s) favorite time. Getting home and switching on her laptop and calling him had become as second nature to her as going for a bath or ordering takeout or going through casefiles with him “beside” her doing the same. But there were days when work or in Jamie’s case family, would pull them apart, taking away those precious hours they cherished. Though Jamie had always managed to find time at his sister’s for a quick hello/goodnight call, unable to go too long without hearing at least her voice.

As the weeks dragged on, neither found anything new in their now dormant case. All they had to go on were two flimsy mentions of two dates. But if it meant getting them back together in the same place again, then they’d take it.

***

_Washington Dulles International Airport._

 

 Claire nervously shifted from foot to foot. It had been a day she’d played and replayed in her mind for weeks, a day she’d been looking forward to like some love-struck teen, but now that it was here… She didn’t know quite what to do with herself. They’d hoped Jamie would have been permitted to fly in earlier, but as it was he’d only managed to get the OK from the Commissioner to travel on the 29th of July - three days before Lughnasadh. Three days from them to prepare. So they’d decided to fly straight down to North Carolina and take the first ferry out to Ocracoke island they could.

So here Claire stood, her suitcase by her side, waiting for Jamie.

Her heart gave a painful thump in her chest as she easily spotted his towering figure through the crowd, coming towards her, and knew his face splitting smile matched her own. He walked towards her like there was nothing and no one around them, but a single, solid point of harbor. When he came level with her, he slowly put his bags down, never once taking his eyes off hers once they’d locked together.

“Hi,” he simply said, standing not but a metre from her.

“Hullo,” she replied, wanting so badly to bridge the gap between them, but was suddenly struck shy by the sight of him.

Sensing this, Jamie gently reached for her hand, twining their fingers. Her fingers tightened instinctively around his. It had been a touch she’d longed for for months, a touch she had dreamt about. Claire felt a loosening in her chest, a uncomfortable constriction she only now realized she’d had since the day he’d left.

The silence stretched between them. They’d spent months never once at a loss for topics to chat about, yet now, facing each other, both seemed to have been struck dumb.

“Our flight’s in about thirty minutes,” she said, if only to have something to say and break the silence. He nodded. And they went quiet again.

“I’d like-”

“-Have you-”

They laughed, tension broken as they suddenly spoke over one another. It was absolutely absurd to think - two grown, accomplished adults - were acting so inexplicably self-conscious with each other.

Finally, Jamie cleared his throat and took a step towards her. “I’d like… “ he began again, taking her other hand, “I’d like very much to kiss ye. May I do that?” he asked timidly.

Claire didn’t think her smile could get any broader, but it did.

“Yes,” she whispered back, nodded for emphasis.

He drew her slowly close to him, holding their linked hands just under his breast. His hands came up to cup her face with such exquisite gentleness, it threatened to undo her completely, and softly set his mouth on hers.

Claire wasn’t quite sure what she’d been expecting. A reprise of the pounding frenzy that had been their last encounter? She’d spent night after sleepless night living that night over in her mind and heart, always kicking herself for stopping them when she did, helpless to change the outcome. What she got now though ripped through her just as powerfully. An excruciatingly tentative relearning. Slowly seeking a joining that was so briefly known, an unspoken permission given with their silent lips. But for all that hesitance, Claire could feel that inexplicable crackling in her blood, that build of pressure just below the surface that only needed the brush of a fingertip to ignite them both. With their eyes closed, the world fell away as they lost themselves in the other’s embrace.

His forehead came to rest against hers as his arms went around her waist - her own going round his neck - closing the distance between them completely.

“Jesus,” he breathed. “I’ve missed ye.”

She nipped his bottom lip gently. “I’ve missed you too. Badly.”

The airport’s PA system boomed suddenly, announcing some flight or other and breaking the spell they’d been under, pulling them back to their surroundings.

“We better get moving,” Claire said reluctantly.

“Aye.”

As they grabbed their bags and walked hand in hand towards their terminal, Claire felt for the first time since she’d met him, that nothing was impossible anymore, so long as they faced it together.

***


	13. Chapter 13

## Chapter 13.

_Ocracoke Island._

 

 Even though Jamie had mentioned he’d found something odd, days before he left Scotland, they didn’t talk about work. Not until they absolutely had to. They’d spent the half hour waiting for their flight, quietly lost in relearning each other; small touches, stolen kisses. Even the flight over was spent in each others arms. It was only once they’d arrived in Ocracoke that they slowly tried to begin shaking off their contented stupors and donning back on their professional veneers.

The island was buzzing with activity. The once small “Garland Sunday” festival growing in popularity over the years, becoming one of Ocracoke’s main draws. No one really knew how such a quintessentially Celtic tradition came to be so popular on the island, though some believed it was the island’s early pirate history that brought such practices there. Some of them just stuck throughout the centuries.

Claire and Jamie made it to the one motel the local sheriff had advised them on the phone still had vacancies. Everywhere else had been solidly booked up. It was more a quaint, little B&B by the waterfront rather than a seedy motel. The harried looking lady at the front desk put on as best a smile as she could as she greeted them.

“Welcome to the island, loves,” she said warmly. “Apologies for all the commotion, it gets quite hectic this time of year!”

“It’s alright,” Claire said with a smile. “We were just hoping to get a couple-” she began saying out of habit.

“-You came just in time too,” the lady interrupted her absentmindedly as she went through her computer. “There’s one room left available. Lovely little room facing the waterfront. Though some do say the early morning fisherman’s traffic can be a bit of a bother,” she added apologetically.

Claire felt Jamie shift beside her at the mention of ‘one room’.

“One room?” Claire echoed. The lady nodded, her smile faltering seeing the anxious looks on their faces, Jamie’s hand still unconsciously on the small of Claire’s back - where it had been since they’d walked in.

“I’m sorry, I just assumed you two were… Unfortunately it’s all that is available.”

Jamie smiled at her, regaining his composure swiftly. “It’s fine, really. Would it be possible to get a cot in there, though?”

“No, I’m afraid not, love. The queen takes up much of the space.”

Both Claire and Jamie let out nervous laughs under their breaths. Work was certainly not going to be a topic of conversation tonight.

***

The room was warm and indeed little. They’d barely had room for their bags. They could hear the lapping of the ocean against the peer. The bathroom seemed more like a hole in the wall than anything, but all in all, they couldn’t deny the intimate surroundings were undeniably lovely.

The lady at reception - Mrs. Bug - kindly offered to bring them up some dinner of cold beer, fries and deep fried, beer battered fish, much to Claire’s glee. “I haven’t had fish and chips in ages!” she’d said happily.

Dinner had arrived by the time Claire had finished freshening up, Jamie sat on the floor by the small table in the corner of the room, where the food had been laid out. He’d changed into shorts and a tee while she’d been in the bathroom - herself in her baggy pj bottoms and Harvard tee.  

They ate slowly. Savoring each other as much as the meal before them. They began talking about the time before they’d met - what felt like a lifetime ago now - and meticulously filling in details of the few months they’d spent apart, even though they’d spoken everyday, neither one wanting to miss anything the other might’ve done. They began to know each other again and discover whether they were in fact the same two who’d, in their short time together, found inexplicable ease and comfort once before. After they’d finished, the same thought was uppermost in both their minds. It could scarcely be otherwise.

Claire hardly touched her beer. Jamie, she noticed, had hardly touched his. Neither one wanting to repeat the mistake they’d made that night in her apartment. He took her hand, his thumb drawing patterns on the back of her hand.

“Well,” Claire said, feeling a flutter go down her spine every time his thumbnail scraped her skin. “It’s getting rather late.” He smiled remembering the first day they met. “Perhaps we should go to bed.”

A positively devilish grin spread across his face. “To bed? Or to sleep?”

For all his bravado though, Claire could still detect the underlying sense of uncertainty. They’d danced around their feelings for months, the tension building with every look and word and now, every touch. She was done denying what she felt for him. But couldn’t deny how nervous she felt either. Looking at him across the little table, she knew there was nothing trivial about the next step they found themselves on the precipice of. ‘It’s late,’ she thought she should say, ‘We have an early start.’ But none of those words formed into coherent, verbal sentences. None of them were the ones she wanted.

“Well…,” was all she said, giving him a coquettish smile.

He smiled and rose to his feet offering her his hand to help her to hers. She took it gladly. They stood at the foot of the bed, suddenly struck shy. How to bridge such a delicate gap? Claire knew, just as certainly as she could see the burning in Jamie’s eyes, that he’d not move till she did.

Claire huffed a laugh, but met his stare and took a step forward, her hands coming to rest on his broad chest.

“This is silly,” she said fixed on the rise on fall of his chest. “Not like this is our first time. We’re both adults after all…”

Jamie’s hands rose to sit on the curve of her hips, bringing her closer. “Aye,” he rasped, “we are.”

His lips claimed hers in a way that melted Claire to the core. Everything around her melted away. And only the feel of Jamie; his rough stubble against her skin, the softness of his lips, the urgency with which his tongue swept into her mouth with, his steadying hands on her hips, took her breath away. Her hands had a mind of their own, rising up to take hold of his face, pulling him to her. She felt his hands tighten on her hips, then snake around her back as her nails dug into the soft skin at the back of his neck.There was no beginning or end to it - to them.

“Jesus…” Claire breathed, light headed and her vision blurred when he pulled away and began nipping at her jaw and neck.

“‘Jamie’ will do just fine, Sassenach,” Jamie replied cheekily against her collarbone.

“Shut it,” she said with a light laugh and his answering laugh rumbled through her making her knees turn to water and her hands flying to the hem of his tee. She yanked it off him rougher than she’d intended, but she knew from the piercing stare that flared in his eyes she’d awakened something primal in him. Something red hot that echoed her own. Something she couldn’t wait to sink her teeth into. And she started by boldly taking his nipple between her teeth, never once taking her eyes off his.

Jamie let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, his body shivering as he felt Claire’s tongue flick. He closed his eyes then, trying to hold in the building urge to simply pick her up bodily and throw her onto the bed and have her in a blinding passion. But he didn’t want it to be over, not so quickly. Instead his hands snaked beneath her tee, his nails grazing against the soft skin of her back’s expanse, leaving a trail of delicious goosebumps in their wake. He smiled. She hadn’t worn her bra.

When her lips found his once more, he lightly ran his tongue along her bottom lip, along the seam of her lips. She moaned and breathed him in, turning then, with her back to the bed and pushed Jamie back a step. Not in refusal, but only so she could pull her shirt clean off. His eyes roamed her upper body freely. Claire took his hands in hers and pulled them both back onto the bed.

Jamie lay on his side, his right leg wedged comfortably between both of Claire’s, his fingers - losing all inhibitions - traced her body, her breasts, the bumps of every rib and vertebrae. He was slow and gentle. Until his nail found her nipple. He watched her as he slowly scratched down against it. Her answering gasp was all he needed. He kissed her fiercely, hard enough to bruise, but to his delight, she matched him. For every bite and caress. Claire’s hands went for his shorts and as she began sliding them off his hips she realized there was nothing beneath.

“Why, detective, seems you forgot your knickers,” she teased, taking his earlobe between her teeth and a healthy handful of buttock.

His own hands had made their way to her pj bottoms at the same time. “Seems you have too, agent Beauchamp,” he said, burying his nose in her wild, unbound hair and took a deep breath.

Jamie’s eyes swept down Claire’s nakedness, his eyes devouring every inch of bare, flawless ivory skin. His trembling fingers trailed down her hip and back up the curve of her behind. His breath catching in his throat.

“Jesus…” he whispered.

“‘Claire’ will do just fine,” she teased, sucking lightly just where his neck met his shoulder.

With a near growl, he pulled her to him then closing what little space there was left between them and got lost in the feel of her mouth on his. Flesh met flesh. Warm and ready, their bodies undulated together. Slowly at first, finding their rhythm, getting ever closer to joining.

With trembling bodies already covered in a light film of sweat, Jamie could take it no more and judging by how Claire’s back arched towards him, she couldn’t either. He grabbed her hip and pushed her onto her back, settling between her legs. Claire cupped his face in her hands, bringing his brow to hers as he finally thrust home with an excruciating tenderness that stopped Claire’s heart. And as the shape of them melding together, everything from how his body fit between hers, how fully he filled her, how their breaths synced, to how powerfully their bodies rocked together - every push and pull and delicious grind - was like a lock to a key, a knife to its sheath. As their worlds exploded in a million fiery starbursts around them, sending uncontrollable tremors through every hidden corner, neither expected the intensity and force with which they became one. With which they became Home.

***

Claire woke at dawn to the groaning of boat motors as fishermen made their way out to sea and Jamie’s body comfortably curled around her own, his hand cupping her breast - not in invitation, but like it just simply belonged there. His chest rose and fell slow and evenly against her back, his nose buried in her hair. She tightened her legs around his where he’d wedged it between her own. Jamie suddenly hummed contentedly, the sound reverberating through her back.

“Morning,” she whispered, twisting slightly to look at him over her shoulder.

“Mornin’,” he mumbled groggily back, perching his chin on her shoulder and leaned in to kiss her. She squeaked as his scruff rasped her cheek, sending shivers down her spine.

“Hmmm, make that noise again for me, Sassenach,” he said, rubbing his cheek against hers more deliberately back and forth.

“Stop that,” she said breathlessly between her laughter, trying to push him off. But he held fast, not giving her an inch. She wrestled a bit more as he kept tickling her.

His head popped up above her as she caught her breath. “Shall I go shave?” he asked in mock concern.

“No,” she replied, taking his face in her hands and bringing her lips her own. “Absolutely not,” she said against his smiling mouth.

She felt more than heard his laugh rumble through his chest as he rolled her onto her back and settled between her legs. His kiss was long and deep. Taking his time to thoroughly explore every corner of her. The perfect words never crossed her mind, there was nothing in there but him - the feel of him, the scent of him, the quiet strength that held her close, guiding her to safety. Everything she ever wanted rushed right by her, yet she was solidly rooted to the earth - rooted to him.

“Keep this up and we’ll never leave this bed, Fraser,” she chided, running her nails down his back, delighting in the shiver his body rippled with in their wake.

“Who said anything about us leaving this bed today, Beauchamp,” he countered, kissing down the column of her neck.

Everything could wait. For a day, one blissful day, everything could just wait. And Claire let every ounce of her scream out as Jamie eased himself home. But he swallowed each cry, trapping each sound deep within him. How quickly they lost themselves in each other should have scared him, it would’ve had it been anyone but her, but she’d taken his heart - he’d given it willingly with both hands - and knew she’d given hers in return. Nothing else mattered beyond that.

Everything could wait.

***


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait! :)

## Chapter 14.

 

 They stayed in bed that day, ordering pizza when they’d gotten ravenous for more than each other’s bodies. They had time before they needed to switch back into work mode and they were determined to make the most of it.

From what they’d gathered from local law enforcement before their arrival, Geillis Duncan had not been spotted and no one had been reported missing. But, given the influx of festival goers swarming the island, there was simply no telling who was who.

“So,” Claire said into the crook of Jamie’s naked shoulder, her fingers lazily running up and down his torso, “I think our best bet would be checking out the local museum. It’s small, but has the history and layout of the island, pre-19th Century.  _Could_ gives us an idea of what exactly Geillis would be looking for here. There certainly aren’t any standing stones on the island now - if at all, for that matter.”

“Hmmm…” Jamie hummed as he delicately circled every vertebrae down her back. “Speaking of Geillis or rather I should say on Gillian Edgars.” He paused to reach for his bag and specs, Claire moaning in protest at the sudden separation of their bodies. “There’s a bit of info I dug up,” he continued as he settled back, popping his specs on and Claire curling back into his side to read the file he pulled out, “turns out the only record there is of a Gillian Edgars is from a police report from 1968. She was the lone suspect in the murder of her husband, Greg Edgars, whom she met at a Scottish National Party rally. He was apparently found burned to a crisp in a stone circle near Inverness called Craigh Na Dun.” Claire sat up a little straighter, brow creased as she flipped through the aged casefile, pulling the picture of Gillian Edgars free of the paperclip holding it. It was unmistakably the woman on the mountain.

“1968? Her first sacrifice?” she said.

“Seems so. Seemed she was also heavily involved with the Society of the White Rose - a group that honored and celebrated the Stuarts, believing them to be the true heirs to the crown and the answer to Scotland’s freedom. Some even called them radicals at the time.”

“Like the Montauk Five…” Claire mused.

“Exactly. Gillian Edgars was a Jacobite. And like the Montauk Five, believed she could travel back in time and change history,” Jamie finished, giving Claire the file to go throw. She settled her back into his chest.

“But history’s as it’s always been,” she said. “Whatever they  _believed_ , history remains unchanged.”

“Aye. But it begs the question as to what Gillian is now trying to accomplish exactly…”

“According to Raymond, she’s “experimenting” for whatever reason,” Claire replied. She let out a sigh and shut the case file, throwing it to the ground beside Jamie’s bag. “Enough work talk,” she said, twisting round to rest her front against his chest. Taking his nipple in her mouth, said cheekily, “there’s far more  _pressing_ matters I’d like to explore myself.”

“Do ye, now?” Jamie grinned down at her, his hand drifting down to cup her behind.

“Mmm-hmm…” she hummed, moving to straddle him. He made to take his specs off, but she grabbed his hand. “No,” she said, placing his hand instead on her hip and began rocking back and forth, “leave them on.”

***

The next day, they reluctantly left their room and ventured out into the bustling streets, heading straight for the little island museum. The late afternoon warm, the air around them buzzing with energy.

A young woman with beautiful milk chocolate skin, with a delicate splatter of freckles on her nose and wild untamed curls, greeted them with a warm “Happy Lughnasa,” as they walked in.

Claire gave her a warm smile in return. “I am special agent Claire Beauchamp, this is detective James Fraser,” she said flashing her badge in that way that always tugged at Jamie’s insides, a smile blossoming on his lips. “And we were wondering if we could have five minutes of your time?”

The young woman - whose name tag read Pheadre - gestured for them to come round the counter she stood at and into the back room.

“What is it I can help you with?” Pheadre asked.

“We were wondering,” Claire began, “if you’d perhaps know whether there were any locations on the island that held a certain…  _Spiritual_ -”

“Or supernatural,” Jamie cut it helpfully.

“-Significance. That is to say, in the island’s history, have there been any locations that we regarded as sacred, perhaps?”

An odd, bemused look crossed Pheadre’s face then. “Now, that’s odd, that is,” she said quietly going to a tiny desk in the corner of the room and rifled through a few papers.

“Why’s that?” Claire asked, exchanging a look with Jamie.

“Just yesterday, this red head came in asking the same exact thing. Said she was looking for somewhere special to celebrate Lughnasa…”

“Christ,” Claire breathed, watching Jamie as he pulled out the composite sketch of Gillian Edgars.

“Talks with an accent like mine?” he asked, passing Pheadre the sketch.

She nodded. “That’s her.”

“It is imperative you tell us  _exactly_ what you told her,” Claire said urgently. Pheadre’s light brown eyes widened.

“Only that it’s a small island and there aren’t places like that here. The only one that comes close is up at what we call Pirate Cove. Legend has it that pirates held the area - I suppose you could say, held the area sacred. It was heavily guarded and many would sail round the island just to make birth there. It was also their slaves harbor. Anyways, over the past hundred years or so, the place has undergone several evolutions. Transformations. She,” Pheadre added warily, pointing to the sketch, “wasn’t at all happy to hear that.”

“What is it now?” Jamie asked.

“An abandoned fish cannery, which has gotten its fair share of haunted ghost stories to it,” Pheadre said with a shaky smile, handing him a brochure with a map of the island on the back. She’d circled an area to the North. “Entire place is a jutted shell now.”

“Thank ye for yer time,” Jamie said, as Claire pulled out her phone to call the local police.

As he followed Claire out into the street, the commotion around them making it hard to hear her on the phone, but he saw her shoulders tense as she came to a standstill.

“Dammit!” Claire exclaimed, pushing the ‘end call’ button harder than necessary. “With the festival in full swing, they have no one to spare. Seems we’re on our own once again. They’ll be on ‘standby’ though,  _‘should we need urgent assistance.’_ ”

Jamie let out an exasperated sigh. “I dinna like having to go in again without backup.”

“Neither do I. But we have no choice.”

He reached out and rubbed her back. “Let’s get back to the motel, Sassenach, and get what we’ll need. Something tells me we may have another long, bloody night.”

***


	15. Chapter 15

## Chapter 15.

 

 The beams of their flashlights crisscrossed as the walked into the cannery, a mere husk of what it once was. The sun had began to set when they arrived but the deeper they went into the abandoned building, the sun might as well have been nonexistent. There was a hollow silence as the light breeze from the nearby coast hummed through the building’s skeleton. No glass adorned the windows, pieces of broken off metal conveyor belt scattered the floor and graffiti lined the walls from what the local sheriff had called the teenagers of the small island’s rites of passage. Everything from who could brave the spooky building’s haunting aura, to high-school raves, the cannery had seen it all.

Their flashlights crisscrossed again as they scanned the main level. For a moment, the only sound was that of the howling wind and the distant lapping of the ocean, but the deeper they got, an agitated and furious voice began to rise. They got to the centre of the large atrium where a large spiral staircase led to yet more lower levels and peered down to see Geillis holding a knife to the throat of a terrified young woman.

“They have  _desecrated_ sacred land!” Geillis bellowed. “They have defiled something precious and ancient!”

Claire and Jamie made their way down the crumbling staircase, Geillis too irate to notice their descent or the light of their flashlights. They both noted the gun in Geillis’ belt at the same time.

Geillis finally spotted them when they’d cleared the last step, coming level with her. She drew the gun, cocking it as she did so, but continued her tirade as if she’d been speaking to them all along.

“They have stripped it of its power!” she screamed at them, waving the gun at the ground. “It’s been diluted. I can hear but the faintest hum! Nothing of the well of power that should be!” In her wrath she brought the knife’s tip down so violently into the crook of the young woman’s neck, it took her moment to register she’d even been stabbed at all.

Claire’s eyes flashed. Within a millisecond her mind had assessed the injury - minimal bleeding, the knife creating enough pressure within the wound itself to prevent her from bleeding out. Despite being in clear pain, so long as the girl didn’t move and Geillis didn’t pull out the blade, Claire could save her.

From the corner of his eye, Jamie saw Claire point the muzzle of her gun at the ceiling, her hands splaying in surrender.

“I hear it too,” Claire said, trying to get Geillis’ attention. “Like the buzzing of a swarm of bees, only here… It’s muffled. Diminished, somehow.”

Geillis paused. Her ranting momentarily forgotten as she looked at Claire properly for the first time. “You… hear it too?” she asked.

“Yes,” Claire replied, taking a step forward. One eye on Geillis, the other on the knife in the girl’s neck. “I heard it on Tryon’s Ridge too.”

“Then ye ken!” Geillis perked up. “Ye ken what power we possess. The power they have desecrated!”

Jamie took the opportunity to slowly begin circling round Geillis while Claire had her distracted.

 _Feed the delusion_ , Claire’s diagnostic mind screamed, even though she knew now it was more than just delusion.  _Give Jamie time!_

“I do,” Claire said, stepping forward and to the opposite side of where Jamie slowly crept. “A power both frightening… and fascinating. The power of possibility.”

A manic softness stole into Geillis’ gaze. “We can do anything. Make kings of fools. Bend history to our will. We can be  _Gods_.”

“But that hasn’t been the case, has it?” Jamie spoke up, much to Claire’s surprise. “You haven’t managed to change a damn thing, have you?”

Without breaking eye contact with Claire, Geillis raised her gun and pointed it at Jamie. “Tell yon wee fox cub that’s far enough.”

“But he isn’t wrong, is he Gillian?” Claire retorted, gaining back Geillis’ attention by using her real name. Anger and disgust flashed across Geillis’ face at its mention.

The sound of distant fireworks echoed through the night.

“I can’t expect ye to understand. Ye canna understand unless ye’ve felt the unparalleled power that comes from crossing over,” Geillis said, tightening her grip on her pistol and taking hold of the knife’s handle in the girl’s neck. “But one day… one day I may just show you what it feels like.”

“That’s never going to happen,” Claire spat back, gripping her gun more tightly and taking aim at Geillis once more.

A devilish sneer crossed Geillis’ face, head tilting to one side. “Never say never,  _Claire_ ,” she said. And before either Claire or Jamie could react, Geillis yanked the knife from the girl’s neck, sending a spray of blood and screams of agony into the air.

Claire’s own scream ripped through Jamie’s insides, but as he took a step forward to grab Geillis, a bang went off and a sharp, searing pain went through his left thigh. A few more pops rang in his ears as he blinked furiously to try and clear his vision. He lost balance and landed heavily on his right knee, his left hand pressing down on the gushing wound, but managed to quickly regain his faculties long enough to see Claire kneeling down and applying pressure to the panicking girl’s injury, as she let off a couple more shots towards one of the doors leading out of the building. He got up and made to run after Geillis who was nowhere in sight now.

“No!” Claire screamed again, as she saw him hobble away. “Jamie! Get back here!”

But he ignored her. Pushing through the pain he made his way to the exit and out into the night.

Claire frantically dropped her gun, hand sticky and shaking, still holding firmly down on the girl’s wound, she fumbled for her phone and dialed 911, putting it on speaker as she did so.

She heard gunshots coming from outside and was barely able to hold back the sob that threatened to undo her, just as the operator’s voice chimed, “ _911, what’s your emergency?_ ”

Just then, Claire heard Jamie bellow “ _Ifrinn_!” moments before coming back through the door he’d run out of, leaning heavily on the door frame.

“ _911, what’s your emergency?_ ” the operator repeated.

“My name is special agent Claire Beauchamp,” she replied, watching Jamie slowly slide down onto his backside, pulling his belt free as he did and tying it tightly around his thigh. “And I need immediate medical assistance…”

***

Claire, arms crossed, paced while the EMT put the finally touches to Jamie’s bandaged leg. The stubborn Scot had adamantly refused to be taken to the hospital.

“It isna serious, Sassenach,” he said, shifting his weight where he sat at the back of the ambulance. “Ye said it yerself, it’s a through and through.”

“She’s right though, detective,” the EMT put in, “you should get it checked by a doctor.” When he’d finished up, made his way back to the front of the rig.

They were quiet for a while, the sounds and lights of the police cars and ambulances blaring around them. Jamie could see by the tightness of her pursed lips how annoyed she was.

“Claire…” he said quietly. “How’s the girl?”

Claire let out a deep sigh, running a hand through her mass of messy curls. “Pollyanne Cameron. She was stable when we got her into the helicopter. I think she’ll be alright, but you can never be sure with those kinds of injuries.”

A harried looking officer approached them, bursts of crackling sound coming from her radio. “We’ve found the small get-away speedboat detective Fraser described, run aground a few miles down the coast - which was registered to the victim,” she said without preamble. “No sign of the suspect. We did find spots of blood in it, though.”

Claire nodded. “I think I caught her with one of my rounds as she fled.”

“Bad enough to need a doctor?” Jamie asked.

“No,” Claire replied, “she was still pretty mobile after the hit.” She turned to the officer and said, “Still, have all the hospitals and clinics from here to the mainland on high alert, and have officers canvas any and all stores that carry any kind of first aid supplies.”

The officer nodded and hurried off, relaying Claire’s orders over the radio.

Claire resumed her pacing, Jamie quietly watching on. He breathed out forlornly as the silence stretched between them.

“ _Mo nighean donn_ ,” he finally said when he couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry I didna heed ye earlier.”

Claire whipped round to look at him, a look of confused surprise on her face. “ _Heed_ me…?” she repeated. Then it dawned on her what he meant. “You think I’m mad at you for—?” she asked, incredulous.

He nodded.

“Jamie…” she said, taking a step towards him. “I was -  _am_ \- angry. But not with you. Exasperated, maybe,” she joked, “but not angry.” It was his turn to look at her confused. She smiled and carefully stood between his knees. “I’m angry we couldn’t get to Geillis sooner and that girl got hurt. I’m angry she got away,” she cupped his face in her hands and brought his forehead to hers, “but most of all, I am  _livid_ you got hurt - again. That’s the second time that bitch has shot you, Jamie, and I’ll be damned if I let her ever get the opportunity to do so again!” she finished fiercely.

His arms came around her waist pulling her closer, and with a cheeky look around, kissed her quickly but thoroughly.

“Is that all then, Sassenach?” he asked, sensing that it wasn’t.

“It’s just…” Claire began, “what Geillis said. About showing me what it’s like to go through…” she said, not meeting his eye.

Jamie’s hands tightened around her instinctively. “Ye’ve been skeptical this whole time, yet  _that_ ye choose to believe?” he asked her with a laugh.

“Don’t you laugh!” she said, playfully hitting his shoulder. “After everything we’ve seen, there’s some truth to it. I can’t keep denying it, even though I can’t explain it. She knew my name. How did she know my name?” she sounded more worried than he’d ever heard her be before, which made Jamie’s stomach toss uncomfortably. “The thought of being parted from you, Jamie… petrifies me.”

“All I ken is that yer wi’ me now, Claire. I dinna care what the fuck that whackadoodle has to say on the matter, I willna be parted from ye - or ye from me. Ever. D’ye hear me?” he added, giving her a small shake. He meant it, with every fibre of his being. She nodded but didn’t look all that convinced. Seeing her so genuinely worried, squeezed his heart painfully. He quickly searched for anything to say that would distract her away from thoughts of them being separated.

“You know, Sassenach, these were my favourite jeans, you didna need to butcher them so,” he said fingering the tattered pieces of torn, bloodied fabric around his exposed thigh. “Ye only ever need ask, and I’d drop them for ye anytime ye like,” he added cockily.

“Don’t get saucy with me, Fraser,” Claire said, pursing her lips trying - and failing - to stop herself from smiling. “Are you in pain?” she asked, concerned, hand pressing against his forehead checking for fever.

“Och, not so much,” he replied.

“You’ll need antibiotics, at the very least, and some painkillers—”

“Well then, it’s a  _very_ good thing I have a physician of my own at hand, aye?” he said, giving her bum a squeeze, making her welp and whirl around to make sure no one was watching them.

“Christ, Jamie!” she breathed, but letting him pull her back between his legs. “You have got to be by far the most pig headed, stubborn—”

“—Scot, aye, I ken,” he smiled and buried his nose into the crook of her neck. “Now will ye take me back to our room and warm me?”

***


End file.
